


Revel

by Lore55



Category: One Piece
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Big Brother Charlotte Katakuri, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Katakuri is good at fighting not politics, OC is a princess, OC is magically pretty, Reincarnation, implied past lesbians, mostly comfort, multiple OCs - Freeform, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2019-09-02 23:24:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16796764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lore55/pseuds/Lore55
Summary: In this life Victoria has always been one thing, and one thing only; pretty. She thought she was fine with that. She was wrong.





	1. Lift The Veil, and The Curtain Katakuri!

King Lysander and his wife, the late Queen Dolce, Dogaressa of Soldano, had three children before her untimely demise some decade and a half past. 

There was Gemma, strong and cunning. Lucien, tenacious and unwavering. Then, there was Victoria. She was pretty. 

In all truth Victoria was the eldest, but the fact of the matter was that there was nothing to be said of her besides the fact that she was pretty. Even court gossip was stagnant around her. 

Gemma was a warrior born, fast and strong, a master of tactics and the human mind. It had been a decade since anyone had been able to beat her in a fight and history had been made when she was appointed General of Imperia’s army at barely fifteen years old. Under her brilliance their army and navy had grown to unprecedented levels and surpassed all generations before them. 

There was a small part of Victoria that blamed Gemma for this. And an even smaller part blamed their brother. 

Lucien wasn’t as good at fighting as Gemma. He was far from a prodigy. Things didn’t come easy to her little brother, who had to struggle to perfect what came to easily to the two girls. Still, he worked harder than any of them, until he had earned their father’s respect, and the adoration of their people. He was not the youngest Legislature Paramount ever, but he had begun a legal reform that showed promise. The people adored him and his fair minded ways.

Victoria di Imperia was not anything so impressive as her younger siblings. She was, simply, pretty. 

The daughter of a former Dogaressa of Soldano and the King of Imperia she had been expected to be brilliant. To be a leader for their people to follow in the era that lay ahead, where pirates reigned across the sea and the land was at constant change. 

She was none of those things. 

Victoria had never excelled at anything in this life. Her tutors praised her for  _ trying _ , her suitors patted her hand and complimented her hair. 

That was fine with her. 

Long before she was a princess Victoria had had her time as a genius, in a lifetime she only remembered vaguely after so long. What she did recall of being brilliant, the predistal that that had placed her upon,  _ well _ . She had no wish to return there. 

Though, maybe if she had shown off more she wouldn’t have been where she was. Perhaps, if she had showed that she had worth beyond being a simple bargaining chip, she would not have been here.

That is to say, in a palanquin bound for a place she really, really didn’t want to be going. 

A palanquin bound for her wedding. 

It was hot in the litter, sunlight bearing down on the thrio that sat inside. Victory withheld her complaints, it would do no good. She couldn't even fan her face, or she might misplace her hair or the garland of crystal flowers that lay within the six curls that crowned her, leading back to the carefully coiled waterfall at the back of her head. 

Traditionally she would have picked a garland of actual flowers from her parents garden the morning of her wedding for this, made up of myrtle, marjoram, and rosemary. The week she had spent on a boat before arriving in the city that morning made such a thing impossible. Instead she had worked with a jeweler and selected the gem and gold flowers that now graced her. 

The bouquet was marginally less important, so local flora was acceptable for that. 

At the moment, it lay in Aelia’s lap, where she sat to Victoria’s left, one of the two handmaidens that had accompanied her in it. The other four rode outside the palanquin dressed in leather soldiers armor.

“All will be well, princess,” Madelle promised. All of the handmaidens were nearly identical to Tori. Madelle in particular was a little less beautiful now-a-days, but when she had been brought into royal service twenty years ago it had been perfect. Her glossy hair was blue-black in the way the sea was at night, her face was porcelain and any blemishes were skillfully hidden under face paint. As they grew older the differences, while still small, became more apparent. Where Madelle’s cheeks remained wide and fell into a narrow jaw Tori had kept her heart shaped face, with the puppy fat falling off of high cheekbones. 

With the right contouring they were still identical. 

If she had been attending a wedding with anyone less dangerous it would have Madelle wearing the white veil that day, but they couldn't afford to risk getting on the bad side of these people. So there Tori sat, her hands clasped in her lap. 

She knew she wasn’t supposed to move much, but she couldn't help pulling the curtain back to catch a glimpse of the building they were marching into. Her breath was stolen immediately. The New World was a weird place, but nothing would have prepared her for the sight of the Whole Cake Chateau. 

It was a massive creation shaped like a four tiered cake, with shingles that looked like frosting and trees that gave it the look of birthday candles. It towered above her, higher than any building in the Novara archipelago. It dwarfed everything around it, from trees to the city that they had passed through on their way from the docks. A magnificent building that showed very easily who resided within in. 

They passed through the from door, which was easily big enough for the entire precession to walk through. Inanimate objects with very animated faces watched them pass, singing about their purposes in life in a rather demented fashion that set Tori’s brows into a furrow. Madelle cleared her throat and Tori let the curtain fall into place once more. She had to stifle her nervous giggling with a delicate clearing of her throat. 

She felt guilty when they began to ascend to the stairs, all the way up to the very highest floor. A garden on the roof, where the wedding would be held. The bearers of her palanquin were strong men, who were supposedly honored to carry their princess up to meet her groom. That didn’t mean that carrying three full grown women up nine flights of stairs was easy. If it wasn’t so improper she would have insisted on exiting the litter and walking herself, getting some of her nervous energy out and giving the poor men a break. 

However, her father was leading the train of Imperian royalty, and he would not have it. He gave his daughter's many liberties, but this was not a time where he could afford to differ from tradition. 

None of them, for their lives or for the lives of their people, could afford to slip up in this dangerous place. 

At last they crested the final step to a rooftop garden. She could hear the hard breathing of the litter bearers and the horses that had fit so easily within the enormous building. It was a miracle that some nervous tick didn’t pop up. Her lips were only just painted today, but still she did not bite them. Her hands were soft with lotions and her nails meticulously cleaned and tipped. She minded herself not to pick at them. 

Her head was held high and her gaze was fixed forwards as the litter came to a stop inside the courtyard. When the door opened she glided down the steps placed in front of her with a grace instilled in her from the day she was born into this world. Madelle and Aelia followed after in soft pastel yellow dresses that wrapped around their throats before falling formlessly to the ground. 

She did her best to keep her face smooth, even if it was hidden mostly behind the veil. 

Faces followed her as she walked slowly towards the grand doors. It was something that Tori was very familiar with. 

In truth, she was glad for her beauty. That was all people saw when they looked at her. They saw she was beautiful and that was all. Not even her own siblings had ever delved deeper. It gave her a type of freedom, liberated from the scrutiny her genius had earned her when she had been Victoria Iverson. Everyone had been watching her then, to see what Ivy League college she went to, to see what world changing career she chose. 

This was better.

Sometimes it was lonelier, she would admit. Never had it been more evident than when she was walking down the aisle in front her new  _ family _ . 

With all eyes on her, and Madelle falling further back as they neared the priest, Tori was filled with a sense of isolation. 

It was a credit to her father's rigorous lessons in geniality and manners that she didn’t trip over her long skirt when she saw who was standing at the head of the aisle. A second son. That was… not normal. She had been expecting the thirtieth, twentieth maybe. The second was preposterous. 

What was so important about her kingdom that she was to marry Charlotte Katakuri? 

Well. Her life just got more interesting. 

Tori turned a veiled smile up at him. 

From the depictions in the manga she’d read all those years ago she had expected him to look like live action Scrappy Doo. What she got instead was a man. An enormous one, true, but a man nonetheless. 

This did bring to mind a few… issues, they would have as man and wife. Standing in front of him at the alter she was well aware that she only came up to his mid drift, and that was in heels. Perhaps his devil fruit could shrink him. Or, given the fact that Gol D Roger was only four years dead and she and her husband were both in the middle of their twenties, maybe she would find that gum gum fruit for herself. 

Tori listened with half an ear for what the bishop was saying.  _ In sickness and in health. Until death do you part?  _

“I do,” she vowed. 

She managed not to tense when the massive man before her lifted the long veil from her. A few of the people gathered gasped at her face. 

She had heard some more romantic people refer to her as ‘enchanting’, ‘peerless’ and ‘artlessly’ beautiful. So she turned her most pleasant smile up at her new husband to prove them right. His eyes widened a faction before any thoughts faded from him. 

“You may kiss the bride,” the Bishop declared. Katakuri leveled him with a narrow eyed refusal. Tori had almost forgotten. 

He was sensitive about his mouth. 

Well, she could live with that. 

Victoria tugged his hand towards her, drawing his dark eyes back to his new wife. He let her lay her lips on the back of his hand. 

“There,” she smiled softly at him. “Will that suffice?” 

The bishop startled. “W-well. The man is meant to kiss the bride and-“ 

“Fine,” Katakuri lowered himself. Tori was truly surprised. He wouldn’t pull his scarf away just like that, right? 

Right. He pulled her hand up and, maneuvering her with a grip tight enough to warn her not to do anything foolish, guided her fingers behind the cloth. She felt the barest imprint of a mouth before her hand was pushed away and he stood up. She saw nothing of his mouth. No one did. 

As one they turned the challenge to the bishop, daring him to contradict them. 

He was sweating profusely when he nodded quickly. 

“I now pronounce you man and wife!” 

Cheers erupted around them. Someone called for the wedding cake. While they ran off Victoria turned away from her husband to watch the line that was made up of Madelle, Aelia, her sister Gemma, a few ladies in waiting and a handful of courtisans that had come with her. After a bit of prompting from Civilla, her cousin, the Charlotte girls joined the line as well, looking confused. 

Perhaps it was a tradition native only to her island, as opposed to the whole world? 

Whatever the case Victoria walked to each of them in turn, kissed a flower from her bouquet of stephanotis, and carefully wrapped the vine around the wrist of each unmarried woman she passed. 

“What are these for?” a rather unfortunate looking girl asked. A scar cut across her face, between her eyes and down the left. She was… Brulee. That was it. It had been many years since Victoria had seen One Piece. It was one of the few things she really tried to remember from her old self, seeing as how relevant it would be in a couple of decades. 

“For a happy marriage,” she explained. “It’s a tradition.” 

“A happy marriage… You don’t need to give one to me,” Brulee told her. Victoria came so close to tilting her head. The only thing that stopped her was a dozen of diamond drops in her carefully piled hair. 

“Ah, if you don’t want to get married they can also instill the desire to travel. Good for pirates, right?” 

“Don’t you see this scar on my face? It’s horrible. I wouldn’t get married happily,” she said all of this with a smile that was frankly unnerving. 

“Well,” Victoria considered her words. “Just don’t marry a shallow person. Love has a way of dismissing imperfections. So keep the flower, please? For luck.” 

“What would you know about imperfections?” one of the other girls challenged. Tori hadn’t been planning on having a conversation like this. This was way too deep for a first meeting. 

So, she smiled at them in a way that made glitter look dull. 

“Me? Nothing at all.” 

She moved on, to the smallest girls, two little pink haired twins that got the very last of her bouquet. At the same time the cake was rolled in, bigger than anything that Tori had ever seen. Her Miss Congeniality mask slipped with her shock at the sight. 

Brulee pushed her, not roughly, towards the table where Big Mom sat with her sons. 

Tori lifted her skirts quickly to join her husband. Her father sat on her other side, looking the king he was in his fine suit and his golden crown. A small gold tiara sat in her own hair, with an identical stone as the one set in her fathers. A ruby. 

Looking at the spread of deserts Tori found herself with a dilemma. 

She was allergic to gluten. She couldn't eat anything in front of her. 

Victoria thinned her lips to keep from laughing aloud. She was allergic to gluten, married to the minister of flour, and her favorite dessert was Mochi. 

That was a problem that was easy enough to remedy. Married women in Imperia did not eat before their husbands, and given the fact that Katakuri wasn’t going to eat period in front of all of these people she was at no risk of having to eat anything in front of her. 

For the rest of her wedding Tori watched other people eat, laugh and dance while she sat next to her stoic husband, struggling not to laugh at the absurdity of it all. 

What an interesting life this was!

* * *

  
  


When she came to understand who her husband was, she was struck with so many questions it was enough to make her head spin right off her shoulders, if she wasn’t careful. So blindingly fast did they fly through her brain that she was barely aware that she had been escorted the whole way to the bridechamber. 

Katakuri, who was not soft spoken but rather rarely spoke at all, brought her the whole way without touching her once. He hadn’t made any contact since they had been wed, not through the reception and not on the brief trip between islands that took them to Komugi. 

She had barely looked at the bizarre landscape they passed when they arrived, that was how preoccupied she was. Even the giant donut with a face wasn’t enough to draw her from her contemplations. 

She didn’t know if she was nervous or not when it came to the idea of consummation. She wasn’t even sure if it would happen. If it did, would Katakuri keep his scarf up the entire time? Or perhaps he would insist that they turn out the lights? He might even blindfold her. 

Now  _ there  _ was a thought. 

Tori offered him a nod of thanks for his graciousness and stepped inside. The room was massive, as one might expect, though sparsely furnished. Her wardrobe would fit easily in the space of the of his hulking armoire. From here she could see the door to the bathroom open, and the tub inside.  _ That  _ was something she would enjoy. 

The one thing that was truly off about the room was utter lack of anything personal. It was spartan perfection and spotless. Not ever a stray spiked boot. 

She looked up at her husband, mouth poised with a question. 

“This will be your room,” he said without promptly. “You are the lady of this house, you will be treated as such. If you are not, inform me. Goodnight.” 

He was gone before Tori could gather her words. 

For a long moment she stared at the closed door. Even though she knew he was self conscious and that there was a chance that they would do nothing, actually doing nothing on her wedding day was more than surreal. She had been preparing herself for months to settle for whomever she was coupled with and let her new husband do as he pleased that night. 

To be doing nothing… 

Tori looked around the room, pulling at drawers and testing the bed. It was evident that it was meant to be shared between her and Katakuri, seeing as everything there was twice the size of any furniture she would use. 

Yet, her husband had left her to her own devices, given her her own room and disappeared into the massive mansion she was now to call home. 

All because he was shy. 

Tori couldn’t help it. She started giggling uncontrollably. 

That was- that was cute! 

Her strong pirate husband, feared son of an emperor, future holder of a billion beri bounty, was cute!


	2. Unnecessary Description

Madelle came to her the next morning with a box of medicines, a cappuccino and and a plate of sliced fruit with a sugary glaze. 

Most of her people ate a pastry for breakfast, or bread in milk with cinnamon. This world wasn’t exactly full of gluten free flour. White rice flour was anything but native to Imperia and Soldano, so she had gone most of her life with very little pastries at all. Royal or not, shipping routes in the New World were tedious and unreliable. 

Tori took one look at the creams in the box and the pill bottle settled along side bandages and antiseptics and shook her head. 

“I won’t be needing any of those,” she said.

Madelle looked at her, surprised. With only Madelle wearing make up in the morning their differences were even more pronounced. Tori had always been careful, even when she was learning her lackluster fighting skills, not to allow a scar to befall her pretty face. Any scars she might have, must be reflected upon Madelle. 

“He was gentle with you, then?” she ventured, relief crossing her face. The Big Mom Pirates were not known for tolerance or kindness. It was only then that Tori realized that Madelle had feared so much for her safety. 

Tori’s smile grew soft and she grasped Madelle’s fingers tightly within her own. 

“Nothing happened, Mad. Nothing at all.” 

“Nothing!” Madelle’s mouth fell open. “He didn’t try to...”

“No,” Tori shook her head, her inky hair falling around her elbows. “He didn’t. He told me I was Lady of the house, and I should expect to be treated as such. Then he left.” 

“Then you are not truly a bride,” Madelle’s voice betrayed a dawning horror. And why shouldn’t it? Until Katakuri had taken her maidenhood she was, by laws of her own people, unmarried and their countries would not be united until that fact was no longer true. However, 

“By the laws of Totto Land, and how Big Mom considers things we are wed. In this arrangement, all that matters is what  _ she  _ thinks,” Tori said firmly. She squeezed Madelle’s hand, looking her right in her deep blue eyes. “The customs of Imperia are irrelevant, we must accept that and adapt to what is expected of us here. Do you understand, Madelle?” 

Madelle was the color of ash even as she nodded. The full weight of their responsibility to their people was beginning to weigh on her shoulders. 

Tori kissed her cheek and finally released her handmaid. 

“Fortify yourself, dear heart. All will be well.” 

“You say that when you have been married off to a demon on a battlefield and the son of - of  _ her _ ,” Madelle’s eyes flashed dangerously. “You have no idea what the future holds, whether he will kill you on a whim or make a true bride of you tonight.” 

“I have known that this would happen since the day I understood what it was to be Crown Princess,” Tori said firmly. “My life is not my own, it never has been. Come what may I will endure, and our people will prosper with this alliance. Even if we are husband and wife in name only, I can be satisfied with that.” 

Tori had never been a fool. She had never had notions that she would marry for love. She had, for most of her life, expected to marry some dull, prissy nobleman who like how her face looked and balked the second she acted like she had authority. She had expected her marriage to be boring. 

Tori hadn’t been lying about being able to satisfy herself with this marriage. In fact, she expected she would have quite a bit of fun. 

So she smiled at Madelle and finished her coffee before moving on to her fruit. 

“Did we bring my red dress?” she asked mildly, “The one with the dove on hip.” 

“It is here,” Madelle confirmed. She set aside the medicines she had brought with her and vanished. A train with the majority of her belongings would be along within the day, until then they were make do with what they had brought along. Her wedding gown and some of her most vain dresses and jewels. 

In all truth, Tori wasn’t nearly so caught up in her appearance as it would look, but when ones only talent was in god given beauty what else was she to do? Skulk around in sweats under a blanket cape? 

… actually, that held some appeal. 

Tori turned back to the door when Madelle came in with a trunk filled with her finest gowns and make ups. She shed her sleeping dress and stepped into the ornate thing that Tori had brought her. With her chin held up and her hair held back Madelle clasped the gold decaled collar of the dress around her throat. The material folded in careful waves to be gathered at her right hip, where they pressed into a dove shaped with two dozen yellow zircon stones. 

The hem fell down to her feet, long enough that they were still obscured even in the white pumps that Madelle also produced. 

After that she attacked her mistresses hair without mercy, forcefully twisting it into an elegant knot on the right side of her head. A gold hair pin dropped a string of zircon halfway to her shoulder. On the other side of the knot was perched her crown, ruby shining proudly. 

On each of her upper arms Madelle slid a heavy gold band, also detailed with rubies, each one three fingers thick. Her left wrist matched in a moment, and her right hand found itself with a thin gold chain looped around her middle finger and a honeycomb of rubies attached to those same chains took up the back of her hand and looped around her wrist. 

Tori parted her mouth so that Madelle could place the red-rose patterned lips on top of her own. 

When she strode into the bathroom and looked at the mirror she had the sudden desire to shed everything go get her blanket cape. 

Instead she turned her gaze to Madelle and smiled, small so the false lips didn’t strain or split. 

“Thank you,” she said. Gemma didn’t dress like this, she was a general and marched around in fatigues, carrying a sword. Her only make up was camouflage and the last time she had worn any vanity had been at their sainted mothers funeral. Gemma was also unfortunately masculine in her face, and on more than one occasion had been called ‘prince’ instead of ‘princess’. 

Tori wondered sometimes if Gemma knew that she was allowed to be feminine and fatal, a devastating damsel, or if she thought she had to chose. 

“Shall we tour the manor?” Madelle suggested. Tori nodded, agreeing without hesitation. 

Perhaps she would see this cute husband of hers.

* * *

The manor was quite a sight. Like everything else in this country, it was themed with sweets. Everywhere she looked she saw a pastry or a desert that she hadn’t eaten two and half decades. Donuts shaped windows, what looked like gingerbread but was actually some bizarre wood made up the walls themselves and the shingles acted like one big slab of frosting. 

Tori felt like she had walked right into a more dangerous version of Hansel and Gretel. One where the witch was now her mother-by-law.

They passed what had to be the tenth tree shaped like a lollipop before Madelle finally sniffed in disdain at all that was around them.

Aelia had taken up a position with the resident quartermaster and hadn’t been seen all morning. Two of her other handmaidens, Varinia and Daria, were off inspecting the troops native to Komugi. The last pair were getting to know the kitchen staff, for Tori’s own good and to get in on some gossip.

They were smart, they were well trained and they knew exactly what they were doing.

This chateau was very different from her father’s palace. Where the walls of her childhood were covered in intricate frescos and fascinating molding of gold on every door and archway, this place was sparse of any decoration. A few painting hung in wooden frames that were far too small for the towering walls, which had been washes white all over. They passed one room that was painted a pale green with darker molding. Besides that it was spartan and clean. 

More than a home it made Tori think of the barracks that her sister kept in Imperia’s capital. Tori, like all proper young ladies, avoided it when she could. Unlike most proper young ladies she had spent years worth of sundays, wednesdays and fridays in the yard, working to fight alongside the men. It was something that her sainted mother had insisted upon, her daughters knowing how to protect themselves. Lysander agreed, however reluctantly, and the result was Gemma. 

Tori knew that once she returned to her island, in three weeks time, she would be pounded soundly into the ground by Gemma. That was the curse laid upon her. 

‘Curse’ was a bit of an exaggeration. It was meant to be a blessing. 

For a thousand years, or at least since the end of the Void Century, Imperia had possessed a woman that they called simply, Enchantress. When one died her apprentices name was struck from the Hall of Records, and she was retreated into the country. Her face was never shown as the Enchantress, and her voice never heard as anyone else. 

As the holder of the Law Law fruit, anything she spoke would become an unchangeable fact. Always, she was present for christenings, to bless a child with a useful skill. 

Tori did not remember her own christening, but she remembered Gemma and Lucien’s quite well. 

She could recall the way the woman dressed all in red had leaned over Gemma’s tiny basenet. Her face was covered by a pure white mask that curved down the sides so her mouth was still visible. When she spoke the words tumbled from her lips and lay across her new sisters soft pink skin. 

_ “She will be always able.”  _

And later, those same lips tumbled unto Lucien’s dark mass of hair more words. 

_ “He will be affable.”  _

Strange. Traditionally, princes were made ‘strong’ or ‘smart’ or ‘powerful’. Tori suspected that the Enchantress that had made her ‘beautiful’ was different from the one that now roamed the country and called little girls ‘clever’, ‘astute’, ‘unwavering’ and little boys ‘gentle’ ‘amiable’ And ‘compassionate’. A far cry from her father, who was ‘strong’. 

The world was changing. Tori liked the way it was going.

As someone who was always beautiful her skin never wrinkled with laugh lines, never burn and it was difficult to scar. Calluses never formed. Every time she worked her hands too much they blistered, bled, and went right back to being perfectly soft as soon as the skin healed. 

She was not a fan. 

It did mean that her skin was perpetually soft, and her fingers always sensitive to the textures of the world in a way that other peoples were not. 

When she ran her fingers along a paneled wall she could tell that it was made of a wood she had never before encountered. Idly she wondered what it was made of. 

Since there was nothing else to do until Lapa collected the records for the estates management she and Madelle spent the morning touring her new home away from home. It wasn’t so bad. 

The sun was still the same, the wind still tried to lift her hair and the plants, despite some being sentient, smelled the way all did. Tori missed her family, but she would be okay until she could see them again. 

She was also curious. Ever since she had been born she had been filled with an endless thirst for knowledge. She wanted to understand the world around her. She wanted to know what made the Grand Line so strange, she wanted to know what caused the Calm Belt, she wanted to know how Devil Fruit worked. She wanted to know everything. 

She wished, sometimes, that she had been born on Ohara instead of Imperia, that she had been a scholar instead of princess. She wanted to see their library and read their books and  _ learn _ . 

She could have made the request to go there to her father, before her wedding. He would not have denied her, but every time she almost worked up the courage for it she would remember a lifetime ago. The stress, the anxiety, the understanding that even the smallest failure from her was catastrophic. She could still remember with horrible clarity crying in the bathroom of her college the first time she got a B +. The sinking, gut wrenching knowledge that she had to be perfection or she would be nothing. 

Without fail she backed away from her desires, choked by fears, and so she remained pretty. She didn’t try for her tutors. She did poorly because it was so easy, and because it was so boring to sit in a room and learn what she had already known. 

It was easier. 

Now, faced with furniture that talked and a whole new island, new flowers and new people and new cultures, she felt that same curiosity rise inside of her again. 

“Mad,” she spoke abruptly, looking to the sky. Soft white clouds puffed by above them, showing no sign of rain, merely soft white joy. 

“Yes?” Madelle stepped minutely closer. In public, she stayed exactly three paces away, as was proper. 

“... I am glad you are with me,” she said, instead of the true words that were on the tip of her tongue. Madelle looked at her and in her eyes Tori could see something. Madella knew she was hiding something. The other woman thinned her lips, her eyes narrowed ever so slightly but she nodded once and fell back into her place. 

They walked on. 

The Komugi chateau was a sprawling structure. She could see where, once, it had been a place of finery, but now it was patrolled by lock step soldier and chefs that rushed to a frow with their carts of ingredients and food stuffs. Without fail, whoever walked by bowed sharply to her, their eyes down and heads low. 

Tori walked on past them. She would not hold people up with her presence when she could help it. 

They explored the sprawling dining room, large enough to fit her husband and his entire family at least. She and Madelle found a parlor where it was evident that people had moved all the luxuries that were in the way in the rest of the chateau and left them there. Paintings of a noble family long gone gathered dust stacked in the corner, intricate arm chairs sat on top of heavy wooden desks. Draped across a solid gold bed frame in the corner was a pile of dressed that had once been beautiful but now were moth bitten and rotting slowly. 

“Poor fools,” said Madelle. “They should have married to Big Mom, not resisted her consumption. 

Tori merely nodded, saddened by the sight. 

Aelia appeared at their side then. The youngest of her handmaidens Aelia was also as close to being identical to Tori as a person could get, but the mischievous spark in her eyes often threatened to give her away. That day she and Madelle, and the other handmaidens no doubt, were dressed in simple blue pants and white shirts that flowed at the sleeves. The collar dipped into a ‘v’ but was joined at the top with a sort of choker. 

“Your Husband, Minister Katakuri of Komugi, Crown Prince of Imperia and Soldano, will not be dining with you today, or for the foreseeable future,” she announced. Tori wasn’t even a little bit surprised. Her mouth twitched. 

“Has he no time for his poor wife? How very sad,” she mourned, hanging her head a few degrees. They held the formality for only a moment longer before both women broke into soft laughter. 

“I’m told,” Aelia said, “That he trains while he eats and no one is allowed to see him while he does that.” 

“Don’t go speculating over the truth,” Madelle warned, her eyes flashing again. Madelle had, for Tori’s sake, eaten the Truth Truth fruit. She could always tell when a lie was told or even a half truth. Even when someone didn’t know that they were lying, she would know. It was ever so useful in a court, and here, in ‘enemy territory’ as Madelle considered it, it was an invaluable skill to know who was and was no ones ally. 

“I won’t, I won’t,” Aelia rolled her eyes. She took a step closer to Tori, so they were two paces away instead of three. “I also heard…” 

And so began the talk. Tori listened with one ear to Aelia’s report of what she and the other girls had learned. Who on the staff was trustworthy, who was a gossip, who was dating when they were weren’t supposed to be. She was told names, positions, ages and relation all under the guise of Aelia being a gossiping little chick, too young yet to be considered a hen.

They walked like that for hours, Tori three steps ahead of the bright eyed Aelia and the solemn Madelle. They toured just about every room in the chateau before finally leaving the indoors once more and stepping outside, into the courtyard where drills were being run. 

She watch out of the corner of her eye as the men went at each other with swords or knives, hacking repeatedly. The same moves, over and over, being built into the very fiber of their beings. Tori carefully withheld a grimace at the idea of holding a sword. 

She didn’t have the taste for battle that Gemma had. Her hands were too soft, her face too pretty and her handmaid's were too important. She looked over the yard, seeing the one in front of her and noting how different it was from the one Gemma ran. Their commander, a man named Trent Burgerion who Tori had been introduced to earlier, barked orders. He was not very commanding, but he was loud. 

“Where do you think my dear husband has run off to?” she asked Aelia mildly. Everything about her was mild and soft. 

“I’m not sure,” she confessed. “He’s very good at disappearing when he wants to. Everyone says so.” 

Tori closed her eyes for a few steps to hide the gleam that threatened to enter them at the idea of playing a game of cat and mouse with her new husband, where the cat was half the size of the mouth. Or, perhaps cat and Eel was more accurate? 

She would never say that aloud. Katakuri was sensitive about his mouth.

Tori almost smiled. 

She hoped she would see him before the day was done, since she would not see him at night.

* * *

In the end, she did not see him that day, nor the day after that nor any of the days that followed. Her first week of marriage and she had seen her husband only for the one ceremony. They were at the time where she, as the new Lady of Komugi, was meant to be introduced to the people she would serve and guide. 

In the meantime, Tori busied herself with adjusting. They put her things away in her room, she got more accustomed to chateau and learned her way around. She and her handmaid's met every single person working there, at one point or another, and when they were not doing those things they retired to a parlor to talk and work. Needles worked through cloth, papers turned in books, herbs were sealed in packets and knives were sharpened to wicked points. 

At last, on the seventh day, she ambushed him. 

That is so say, she walked a little faster and asked about until someone finally pointed her to a hallway. She had just missed him. 

She managed to turn the corner before he could vanish again, her heels clicking against the tiled floor and giving her away. As if he didn’t already know she was there. The long strand of hair floated past her shoulder, the only curled lock that wasn’t pinned close to her head by small flower pins decorated with rubies and sapphires. The sea and fire lit her hair in the light that filtered in through the windows. 

He saw her coming and, to the surprise of no one, picked up his pace and absconded. He was tall, towering easily over everyone who was not his mother. Tori’s people were tall too, somewhere between eight and ten feet on average, with Tori on the lower end. Much taller than the average human, but much smaller than the Charlotte’s eldest children. 

She wasn’t sure why. Some kind of branch of evolution did it. She half suspected the air on her home was richer with oxygen, but she had no trouble breathing on Komugi, so that line was out. Another idea was that they weren’t humans after all, but a sort of pygmy giant that lived on the archipelago away from their relatives. Without genetics testing, she couldn't be sure. 

Unfortunately for her shy husband, Tori was not so easily deterred. She put a hand out to stop her handmaidens from following her as well. Madelle made a face at her but came to a halt, and Varinia didn’t seem to care. Varinia was the least expressive of all of them, which did make it harder when it was her turn to be Victoria, but that was a concern for another day. 

Right then, Tori picked up her pace past what was decent for her dress and managed to catch up to Katakuri at last. She was very certain it was only because his pride wouldn't let him actually run away from his wife. 

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and she was struck, momentarily, by the sharp contrast in him as he was now and how he was at the altar. There he had been dressed in some degree of finery and held himself with the air of stubborn importance and power. Here the power rolled off of him in palpable waves. He was dressed plainly, at least compared to the fine and fancy princess. His plain leather vest was set over a loose red shirt and his long black pants tucked into short boots. There were no spikes anywhere to be seen. His scarf was smooth and flashed with the light, a sort of red. 

She wondered if he had his tattoos yet. She certainly hoped so. 

She had none, herself. They didn’t stick to her lovely skin. 

“Good morning,” she said pleasantly. Katakuri looked at her, then face forwards again. It was all Tori could do not to huff at him. Strong and silent, the cool older brother type. That was Katakuri. Except, that wasn’t all there was to him. 

He was lucky she had a saints patience. After some thought, Tori decided to keep things business oriented for a the time being. She could chip away at his walls and unravel his scarf later on.

“Are you going to train? Or view the grounds? As the Minister of flour do your duties extend only to the fields, or to Komugi as a whole?” 

For a minute she wasn’t sure he would answer her at all. Then, he tilted his head ever so slightly to the east. His short cropped hair ruffled with the movement, swaying crimson spikes along his high forehead. Tori’s fingers itched to find out if it was soft. She hoped it was soft. 

“I finished training earlier. I have no need to simply view the grounds. My duties are to govern Komugi as a whole, but they center around providing flower for the rest of Tottoland, specifically Mama.” 

Tori listened to his voice, soaking in the knowledge. 

“Big Mom… am I expected to call her ‘Mama’, now, as well?” she mused, peering up at him. 

“She will prefer it,” he confirmed. Tori tapped her fingers idly, the closest nervous habit she had, after she’d been tied down for scratching at her neck to much. 

“It’s been a few years since I’ve called anyone Mama. It will take getting used to, I imagine. I don’t believe Father will have a preference for what you call him,” she added. 

Katakuri looked at her then, his red eyes catching on her face before he glanced away just as fast. 

“You don’t have a mother then?” 

“Ah, no. Forgive me, I forget sometimes that the news of the Archipelago does not reach as far as into the outside world as it does in my heart,” her smile softened into sadness. “My mother, Her Serenity the Dogeressa of Soldano, Queen Dolce of Imperia, passed away fifteen years ago. A fever took her, I’m told. But, that’s depressing. Tell me of your family, will you? I met your sisters briefly, but Brulee seems sweet. Blunt,” she added, with a touch of fondness. “But sweet.” 

“She is,” Katakuri rumbled, and there was no way to disguise the fondness in his voice. It made Tori’s ribs contract. “As long as you’re an ally.” 

There was something pointed in his tone. 

Tori hid a smile. “Then it’s a good thing that we are. Allies, wed, the pair of us.” 

Katakuri breathed a bit louder. Tori wished she could see the rest of his face. She wanted desperately to know what he was thinking. 

“Yes,” he said slowly. “What did you and Brulee talk about at the wedding?” 

“That? The flowers. My people assigned meanings to different plants and gems. The stephanotis is traditionally given to all single ladies in attendance to a wedding, to wish them a happy marriage in the future. Another meaning behind them is the desire to travel. She and I were discussing them. A shame she’s not a bit more confident,” she mused. “I’m surprised the flowers made it here though. They’re very tempermental. They don’t like changing climates a’tall.” 

Katakuri said nothing to that. Nor did he try to walk away from her either. They strode side by side to the gates of the chateau. 

Tori waited for him to send her away while he made his way out into the world around them. She waited for him to vanish in speed she just knew he was capable of. Instead, he pushed the gate open with his bare hands. No one rushed to attend them, no one scrambled and bowed and scraped at his feet the way they would have if he were an Imperian lord. 

A smile grew across Tori’s face. 

She stepped out into the open air, free of the confines of the chateau, at her husbands side. 

“Where are we going?” she asked, though she really didn’t care. She was getting to stretch her feet and see a new place. New people, new plants, new land formations. New deserts, too, she would be willing to bet. 

“To view the island,” he said simply. His long legs could have carried him easily away from her, forcing the princess so scrambled to catch up in her long dress and its weighted skirts. Instead, he took slow, deliberate steps that let her keep pace with him whilst also preserving her dignity. 

They didn’t really venture into town. She could see it, the icing dripped rooftops and the gingerbread walls, the people who looked more like pastries running to and fro with their everyday lives. Bakers, mostly, but she caught sight of a few clothes shops and a grocery store as they skirted the town lines and moved on. Though all of the buildings were made and shaped like pastries the island was not devoid of true life. The giant smiling donut had once been a mountain, she was sure, but there were still rock fixtures. THere were still trees. 

In fact, Komugi itself was very different from the Whole Cake Island. It was not completely drenched in the oppressive power of Big Mom. Her magic, her Haki, her Homie’s were fewer and further between on this land. The donut was the largest give away to what it was but the rest of the island still held traces of what it had been, before it was taken over by Big Mom. The trees were true and green, the grass was delicate and waved gently in the wind. 

“How long have you had this island?” Tori asked. She let her eyes trail across a patch of flower, long stemmed and yellow. Bees floated lazily from one to the other, little friends doing their best. 

“Not long,” Katakuri said. He didn’t stop walking, so she left behind the flowers and went after him. 

“Are you always vague and mysterious?” she asked, casting him a corner eyed smile. He looked at her and away, quickly, tucking his face further into his scarf. Her head perks up. Emberssed, perhaps? 

“Who knows,” he said simply, and Tori had to fight not to grin. As it was, she giggled at him, covering her mouth but not her sparkling eyes. 

They walked the length of the island in a companionable silence. Tori avoid chattering his ear off, however tempting it might be to bombard him with questions and draw out every ounce in information he has inside his pretty little head. 

Instead she walks beside him, measuring his steps and hers. Again she thinks of devil fruit and how to use them to her advantage, to make her life with Katakuri easier. 

They returned to the Chateau by the time night fell, and Tori was handed off from her husband to her handmaidens. Her feet hurt, but she was smiling. Before Katakuri could leave her again for who knew how long and grasped his hand and kissed it, tilting her head in a smile that almost dislodged some of the gems in her hair. 

He stiffened, red eyes flashing wide before he pulled his hand back and made his escape.


	3. Unasked for Perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this ones kinda short, I'm kinda nervous about writing from Katakuri's perspective, especially when he was young.

Victoria di Imperia was not what Katakuri had been expecting. When Mama told him he would be marrying at the next tea party he accepted it without question. When he had been stuffed into as stiff suit and had his normal scarf traded out for one made of silk and patterned with fish scales he hadn't put up a fuss.

He had heard of Imperia. He knew it was on the outskirts of their ever growing territory. Mama had wanted it, it was a vast land with a large population and a reputation for producing strong warriors. That all together shouldn't have been enough for him to be getting married.

That would have warranted Moscato, or even Cracker walking down the aisle, young as they were.

When he'd asked his mother, she had told him not worry about it and that was that. What Mama says goes in his world and his wedding was no different.

He hadn't been expecting Victoria.

All the gossip and all the teasing from Oven weren't enough to warn him.

She walked down the aisle with radiance that lit the room. Even with a veil covering her face he could tell she was pretty. She walked with grace and poise, walked towards him and damn if some childish fantasy about the farce being real didn't pop into his mind.

When he drew the veil back and Victory turned her first smile up at him and the rest of the world stopped spinning for a long second.

Victoria was _beautiful_.

Everything about her, from the graceful curve of her neck to the soft skin that looked like it belonged stretched in a smile to the shine of her blue-black hair dusted in diamonds.

Katakuri had never been up close during weddings. His siblings, those that had been married off by Mama, were always the ones up close and he was rarely positioned at an angle where he could see the face of whomever was marrying into his family.

He had heard stories of what brides in arranged marriages felt, what they were like. The descriptions were never pretty. They were lambs to a slaughter, sacrifices to a greater cause, meat sold to the highest bidder. A particular tale from the North Blue centered around a girl sold off to the strongest soldier of a kingdom that had conquered her own, the last noble lady from a rebellious state that walked to her marital bed with the proud determination of a warrior entering their final battle.

None of those matched the honey-sweet smile that graced him when he pulled the veil back.

Katakuri was suddenly intimately aware of exactly how little experience he had with women. His sisters he loved and adored, the women under his command were loyal and frankly quite terrified of him. He realized, standing in front of a priest whose knuckles had gone white holding his book, that he had no idea how to have a relationship with a girl.

He didn't even know what real girls were _like_. He was 26 and he had never been in any relationship, never mind a serious one.

He was so out of his depth that when the bishop told him to kiss her he glared as if that would light the man on fire.

He looked down in time to see her soft mouth, the color of raspberry smoothies, lay a kiss on the back of his knuckles.

She looked up at him like she knew there was heat and frustration and embarrassment crawling up the back of his neck and smiled that same way, all but banishing it.

"There," her voice was the soft sigh of the sea breeze at dawn, "will that suffice?"

The bishop looked ready to pass out. Katakuri wished he did instead of stumbling over, "w-well the man is meant to kiss the bride-"

That was that. Katakuri could feel Mama's eyes on his back, warning him not to screw this up. He didn't make many mistakes, they all knew too well the consequences of them. He wanted to kiss her, when she looked up at him with that kind smile, the one that defied every hostage bride he'd ever heard of. That was not to be.

"Fine," he grunted, and knelt to her height. She was so small. At her height she was even better to look at. He brought her fingers past his scarf, weary that she might try to pull it down or something else foolish. She didn't, and as man and wife they turned to challenge the bishop to try and correct them again.

Wisely, he didn't.

Katakuri was given time enough to remember how to breath while his wife went between his sisters, her own bridesmaids and a smattering of other invited young women, tying flowers around their wrists. She stopped at Brulee

Katakuri couldn't hear what they were saying, but something that was said made her face light up. The cake was rolled out right as she wrapped a flower around Chiffon and Lola's wrists.

Brulee pushed her, not roughly, towards the table where Mama sat with her sons. The only one there not part of the family was King Lysander, who sat one seat away from Katakuri. The empty space was filled by his daughter, who sat quietly beside him. Katakuri didn't bother to fill his plate, and neither did Victoria.

Perhaps she didn't care for sweets? He hoped that wasn't the case.

What was he thinking? It wasn't like they were going to eat together. They would live together but they would eat separately, they would live in seperate apartments in the Komugi chateau, sharing a bed was out of the question. They weren't going to sleep together, in any manor.

Katakuri set his jaw in a hard line and tried to focus on the conversation going on around him.

* * *

When they were on the boat, he couldn't help staring at her when she wasn't looking at him.

Victoria was a vision, her white wedding gown unrumpled and her hair shimmering with dozens of small precious stones. More stunning than all of the jewels, even the one on her finger, was her eyes.

Clear crystal blue, the burning with the reflection of the setting sun drowning in the ocean.

Katakuri wanted to say something, to tell her she was stunning, to ask that she turn those eyes unto him and see beyond his malformation. He wanted to reach out and brush away a stray strand of glimmering hair but there was none out of place that might give him the excuse to touch her again.

He could still feel the imprint of her small fingers in his own, soft and small and slender. He could still feel the velvet of her lips on the back of his hand, and he wondered if the tingling it had left behind would ever go away.

In the end, he couldn't bring himself to break the silence, and Victoria seemed content enough with it that she didn't try to either. Once, he thought that she might. She turned to him, caught him staring, and opened her mouth to say something.

Katakuri waited, his head beating hard under his ribs, before her mouth fell closed again and she instead levelled him with a softening of her eyes and a curve of her mouth. His tongue was too heavy to even try for conversation after that.

He said nothing to her when he took her back to Komugi, and in turn she said nothing to him. A silent departure, a silent trip until they came upon the room that had, on Mama's orders, been molded into one that he was supposed to share with his bride.

The closer they got to it the harder his pulse beat in his neck.

A part of him wanted to rip the scarf off, get the farce over with and let her scream. Like ripping off a bandaid.

Then he remembered her smile at the altar, the shine of her eyes and the flash of perfect, straight teeth so unlike his own.

"This will be your room," he said around a thick tongue that didn't fit quite right in his teeth. "You are the lady of this house, you will be treated as such. If you are not, inform me. Goodnight."

And he left. Walked away from his wife, whom he had neither truly spoken with nor truly kissed, determined to keep from her and her strange kindness as long as he could.

The chefs already had his room set up with a mountain of pastries and sweet teas.


	4. A Curious Walkabout

Tori went out with him a few more times after that first night. Katakuri showed her the beach and the towns and the faces on trees as the dusk set the sky to a pale pink dusted with periwinkle and flecked with the Stars. 

He stayed quiet, most of the time, and it was always Tori who sought him out, but it was an improvement. 

He did not go out of his way to avoid her and he put up with her grasping his arm like a proper lady of the court.

It’s bound to be something of a scandal when she gets home.

Katakuri is not a noble lord. He is not from an ancient family whose name is etched into stone walls and sung of in songs. He is not blood of the Novae, he is not even of their archipelago.

He is a stranger, and a demon, and the son of a witch who is eating up territory and consuming kings and countries who do not bow to appetite.

Even more than that, he is going to be their King.

Imperia is not like some kingdoms. They are not like the Grace’s of Lazareth, whose line of success passes through the boys only. Theirs depends upon birth line, and despite her siblings phenomenal talents and contributions to the country it will inevitably be Tori who takes over the country.

Tori, and this strange man who will be their King, who she knows nothing about personally. Only secondhand information and a girls idled musings.

Was that why Big Mom had married him to her? So that she could claim one of her son’s a king? If so, it still didn’t explain why they had chosen Imperia. There was nothing truly spectacular about it. Not enough that it would warrant this.

At least, nothing Tori knew of.

She tried to banish the thought, but as soon as it passed through her mind it would not leave.

Tori looked out the window of the room gifted to her. A plum tree swayed in the breeze, fat red fruit hung low on it’s branches and the sweet smell floated in with the breeze. It tousled her hair, lifting the long strands across her shoulders.

Was there something important about Imperia that she hadn’t known about? Was there something dangerous on her island? Something useful to a woman like her new mother-by-law?

The idea soured the sweetness in the air and made her hands clench at her sides.

Her father was not a man of many words. He had taught them little, indulged them beyond tradition, but it was tutors and knights and lords that had been responsible for their real education.

He had loved their mother. Loved her so much that when she had died his heart had died with her and the light had left his golden hair until it was dusted with white and shocked through silver.

He had withdrawn from them. Tori wondered if it was painful to look at his children, black haired and blue eyed like his beloved Dolce. She had been smart and kind, when she could be, but she did not shy away from cruelty.

When Tori was young she had heard them fight once and only once.

Their marriage had been one of love. Dolce and Lydander had fallen in love during a court season when they were both young. When he was new King, still mourning his father and Dolce was the youngest Dogeressa in history. She was from a good family, an old family, but the marriage had broken his engagement to Laetetia Felicitas, one of the richest women in the Grand Line.

They knew, and their children knew, that they would have to marry politically to save face and to strengthen the political ties in their country. But Dolce, with a fury in her eyes, was the champion of her children.

She told her husband, did not ask but  _ told _ a king that his children would have a say in their marriage. That they could meet their betrothed and say no, if they so chose. She had made him promise, swear that he would uphold this. His daughters would not fear their husbands, their son would never be subject to a cruel wife.

Lysander had forgotten the vow with her death. He had not given Tori a choice, had not offered the option to say no. Her sister had not stood for her and called for arm in Tori’s defence. Her brother had merely mentioned marriage laws would make an outsider a king. 

Lysander had drawn away from his children. He had forgotten his vows, or merely hadn’t cared, and Tori wondered if he had ‘forgotten’ more than just that promise. There were things that could only be passed from one to another, there was training to be a ruler that could only be learned from one that had been there or on one's own.

Had he neglected to tell Tori something important, the way he had neglected to ask her if she agreed to the proposal?

It was true enough, she couldn’t exactly say ‘no’. Her people would have been slaughtered by Big Mom and her children. She couldn’t deny it, but there was something about not being asked that stung her.

“You look like you’re about to spit lightning,” Lapa told her. Her mouth it small and pressed over with blue lips patterned with small stars. The dress she wore was a pale blue that shimmered with silver woven into the floating gauze. Even looking for them it was impossible to see the number of knives strapped across her body.

Tori turns to her. She and Aelia are dressed together in black trousers loose enough to pass as skirts and blue shirts that fluffed around the sleeves and tied across the chest. They were dressed down, the pair of them on their way out of the chateau and into the village nearest by. If Victoria was to rule this land as well, she needed to know its people.

It would do her good to get out of the walls as well, though within the week she and her new husband would be on their way back to Imperia to visit with her father, as was tradition. It was meant to be a way for her father to ensure that she was being properly taken care of, but even if she wasn’t, he wouldn’t raise a hand to Katakuri. He wouldn’t risk it.

Madelle might, if she thought she must. Aelia would, and Lapa would poison him with Daria cooking the pie. Varinia and Flora were hard to say. Perhaps they would fight him. Perhaps they would plot the downfall of his country and his mother. 

The thought made her smile. 

“We’re to be off,” she told Lapa. “Be safe. Beweary my husband, he may notice that you are not me.” 

“He would be the first one to see past us,” Lapa reminded her. 

“Still.” 

Lapa bowed minutely towards her. 

Tori drew Madelle’s arm into the crook of her arm and the pair went off. 

The people of Komugi did not keep riding horses. All of their transportation was done on foot, or in a cart, if it was needed. And so Tori was on foot as well. She knew the way from Chateau to the town well by now, she had walked it many times with her husband, in name and perhaps in friendship, though she could not say for certain. A few evening strolls did not make a confidant. 

They passed through the servants quarters, and out the back until they had left the chateau behind entirely. It faded into the background and they walked quietly through the woods. The gold sunlight spilled dappled shadows across the pathway and the smell of heat and greenery enveloped the two of them. 

Komugi seemed to happily be a land of summer, with warm air that blew in and carried with it bird songs and the whisper of the magical, talking creatures that populated all of Katakuri’s mothers land. 

It was pretty, if not still a bit demented. 

The more time Tori spent on her new land the more and more she came to realize exactly how isolated her island nation was. Their fashions were old, of tradition and finery and impractical unless they needed to be. Contrarily, everyone she saw seemed content to dress in little. Only one layer, perhaps two if there was a chill in the air.

In thin shirts without the fanciful embroidery and decor that Tori and her people favored. The clothes were not tailored to fit everyone, save those like her husband who had some type of giant blood within their veins. 

Even dressed down as much as they had, the pair of them still stuck out. Thought the people had grown used to her handmaidens, and hardly looked at them while they walked past.

The fruit stands in the market avoided bitter things like lemons, limes, grapefruits and ashberries. The bakers were clearly the busiest, and the most popular. They had tarts and fluffy croissants, and breads swirled with cheese and cinnamon and strawberries. They smelled wonderful. 

And Tori couldn’t eat any of it. 

She and Madelle walked arm in arm away from the aptly names Sifters Street and turned a corner down Bolt Row. Here she found the cloth shops and the merchants. But they were not tailors. 

She eyed them in passing. A loom house emulated the steady clacking of a shuttle. One shop boasted long rolls of colors of only the more muted, natural colors. Greys, browns, greens, blues, oranges and yellows. Some were striped, some were plain. 

Those were only two though. A few steps forwards revealed something that Tori hadn’t seen in a lifetime. 

A real, honest to god, clothes off the rack boutique. 

Tori dragged Madelle in immediately. T shirts. Shorts, skirts, tank tops, name brand, cheap, manufactured clothes. Tori ran her fingers across a scarf that was rough enough to catch on the grooves of her fingers. She inspected a pre-patterned shirt that she didn’t have to spend half an hour standing still for. 

Her excitement bubbled. She had forgotten how much she missed simple things. Easy, modern things that she’d never paid two thoughts to before she’d died and come here. She started grabbing clothes and inspecting them, trying to figure out her size. She’d almost missed the bull shit involved in shopping for womens clothes! 

She grabbed colorful t shirts and a couple of tank tops, to Madelle scandal and flushed face. And jeans. She’s missed jeans so much. 

Tori left Madelle behind while she changed. Trying on jeans for the first time in twenty years. They were rough against her soft skin, not worn in yet and tight. She switched to a bigger pair, and then a tank top. 

When she looked into the mirror in the changing room she felt more like her old self. She felt less stifled, less restricted, and more free. There weren’t a half dozen layers or a particular lay for the fabric. This was just clothes. She was just a girl. 

Tori grinned at herself in the mirror and was surprised by her own reflection. Even dressed in common clothes she was beautiful. 

She changed back into her blue and blacks and went to buy her new stuff. 

“This is hardly worthy to touch your skin,” Madelle told her as they left. Tori grasped her hand and tucked her hand to her side. 

“Mad, dear heart, I like them. And if I’m to be here, I might as well enjoy what I can. I’ll buy you some too, if you want.” 

Madelle ‘harrumphed’ but did not pull her hand away. 

Tori, grinning, lead the way back to the chateau. 

* * *

The night was cool and dark. 

Tori said nothing to anyone before she snuck away from her room, did not rouse her handmaids from their slumber to accompany her where she was going. There was no need. The Chateau was asleep, quiet as could be. Not even the small talking mice stirred as she slipped out the kitchen. 

She traded her fine silk slippers for thick leather sandals and set out into the forest that surrounded the amalgamated building. Everyday she could see more and more of it being eaten up by the sugar themed. 

It was harder to see in the black shadows of the night. The donut that made up the mountain and overlooked Komugi was fast asleep, it’s massive eyes shut as well as its mouth. The sun was vanished and only a small crescent made up the moon, a cheshire grin in the black sky. 

The shoreline was not precisely close, but it was close enough for her to reach by foot. Far off in the dark waters she could see the barest silhouettes of a few small ships anchored off the ghost, lit by lights within the cabins. To ensure that no one got in or out without Big Mom’s permission, she was sure. 

Tori looked away from them. 

She walked down the shore until she was standing at the edge of the water. It lapped at her toes and reached across the leather straps until it was at her ankles. She stepped in until she was calf deep in the water. 

What little light there was vanished when she closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, drawing the damp air and the salt into her lungs. The lap of the water on the shoreline drowned out all worldly distractions. The darkness left her floating in an abyss of the sea and the sea alone. 

Her soft skin chilled under the oceans care. 

Imperia had old myths about the ocean. 

The Ocean was the mother of everything and everyone. She and her wife the Moon watched over the world, and the people beneath it. The humans were the children of the Ocean and the Sun, who was brother to the Moon. Eons ago, after their children were born Ocean left Sun to be with his sister. Split between them, the humans were given to Earth to be raised and protected and raised along with Earth’s children the plants and the animals and the precious stones. Moon and Ocean had their own children, younger than the humans they were Mermaids, Fishmen, and all the creatures in the seas. 

Tori was a daughter of the ocean and a child of the sun and in the water she felt stronger. 

She focused, humming the old nursery hymn that her mother had taught her, so very many years ago. 

_ Roll forth Ocean mother _

_ Carry you children far  _

_ Shine bright moon hung o’er  _

_ Watch over their tepid flight  _

_ Bring with you, Great mother  _

_ The silver crashing mist  _

_ Protect your sons and daughters  _

Tori felt strength gather inside of her. Her soft, pale skin grew harder and darker. From Porcelain to stone to steal, but it wasn’t enough. She gather the song inside of her, she grasped the feeling of her mother’s arms around her. 

She held it tight under the warmth of the memory was too much, until it threatened to bubble over. She released it all at once and the heat rushed out of of her, away from her skin. The ocean parted around her legs, swirling with the power that flowed out of her skin. 

Tori stepped forwards and the bubble around her expanded and spread before her. Another step. The water did not touch her but if it had it would have been to her hips. She kept going until she was sure that she was in over her head. Only then did she turn back. She spread her arms around and the water churned and swirled around her, parting until she was standing on dry land once more. Sand scattered along with the water until she finally, finally released it. 

Her breath came easier. The warmth rushed out of her and left her feeling cold in her dampened nightgown. 

When her eyes opened, she realized she was not alone. 

Katakuri stood at the edge of the forest, where the greenery fell away to sand and sage. He was tall, hulking shadow and his eyes were locked upon her. Tori felt bare before him, no make up, no fanciful dressed. Her hair hung around her in waves as black as the ocean. 

“I thought you were asleep,” she said slowly, for lack of anything else she could think of. 

He looked between her and the ocean, one to the other, before he settled upon her. 

“I thought you might be leaving.” 

She didn’t know what to think of the tone of his voice. There wasn’t one, and she couldn’t read him at all. But there was no anger or malice. 

Tori shook her head. “I am your wife. If I go I go with you. You are coming with us back to Imperia next week, aren’t you?” 

He nodded, slowly. “Mama told me to.” 

Tori wasn’t sure why her stomach sunk so fast. She lifted her chin, gifted him with a smile that had no false, laid upon lips, and walked into the trees. She was aware he was following her this time. 


	5. Itinerant Spouces

Tori sat with him in the garden two days later. 

It was only partially food themed, will lollipop trees and spun sugar bushes, but the rest of the world was green plants and sweet berries. They fit neatly into the gazebo that had been built outside, painted white and inside was a small table, elevated on glass. They had lemonade, and straws so Katakuri wouldn’t have to bother with his scarf or his insecurities. 

He was still quiet, but he answered when Tori posed questions and went along with what she might have said. 

She had been quieter since the night on the beach, but not by much. Tori had practiced for years to get used to talking to people. Before she had always ended up telling people a hundred times too much for their acquaintance, or rambling on about things that no one besides her really cared about. 

She was better about it here, but Katakuri made her nervous sometimes. He didn’t react much, but as Tori figured if he was truly bored with her he would just walk away or tune her out. 

A soft wind blew and tousled her hair, pinned tightly against against her skull before it fell in waves down her back. In the summer sun it lightened minutely and the circlet gleamed silver in the sunlight. In the back it changed from twining strips of metal to blossoms of fine gems into hollyhocks of blues, violets, and reds. Her gown was simple, for her in any case, and formed well to her as it fell pleated across her in a violet wave that set off the blue of her eyes. 

Her sandaled feet crossed beneath the long skirts. One day, she would put on jeans and run around. For now, she maintained her propriety. 

For once, it was Katakuri who broke their small silence. “What were you doing the other night?” he asked. “I didn’t know there was a water devil fruit.” 

They made quite the pair. A mirror of opposites, for Katakuri wore his spiked leather and his covered mouth and held himself with a warriors set, and Tori sat in fine georgette with her smile as her only visible armor. 

A woman's courtesies were her weapons, her first etiquette teacher had told her once. Her mother had dismissed her a mere week after and replaced her with a woman who taught Tori to aim for the eyes and use her hair pins to her advantage. 

She was also the first one to teach Tori about haki, and Tori had taken those lessons and run with them. 

Haki was so strange. 

It was in everyone, and everyone could use it, but so few trained to. And among those that did, nearly none of them pushed it to be what it could. They were contented with merely sensing who was around and darkening their skin. But the endless possibilities for haki users and the potential shot right over their heads. 

It drove Tori insane. 

So she did. She pushed it. She had little talents for kenbunshoku, mantra, observation haki or whatever other words there were for it. She could use it, but not to extent that she knew was possible.

It was busoshoku where she excelled. For someone with soft skin that would never scar, she had an armor that was just as useful as a sweet smile. Haki was, of course, what she had used to move the water. To create a bubble around herself. 

“There isn’t one. It was busoshoku haki,” she told him. “I saw a man once use it to push at a distance. And so I taught myself to do the same.” 

It was the truth. Years and years ago she had seen Sentomaru use it against Luffy, twenty years in the future (give or take), and though it had taken her years she had eventually replicated the technique on her own. No one else knew what she could do, not even her handmaidens. 

Except, now, Katakuri. 

“You taught yourself?” he leaned his head down towards her, a strange light in his eyes that made Tori feel warm. 

Tori inclined her head. “Yes,” she confirmed, feeling just a smidgen of pride. She tried to squash it quickly. Pride would only lead to a fall, and to the ledge of failure. 

“I didn’t know.” 

Sometimes Tori was reminded of just how little Katakuri spoke, and how awkward all of the Charlotte siblings were. Quirky and strange, and not very well adjusted. How much of it was being raised in the new world and how much of it was from their mother? 

Tori would not be asking any time soon. 

She didn’t know his siblings particularly well. None of them had visited since the wedding, but if she recalled correctly Katakuri was close with Brulee. She lifted her eyes up to him, an idea spinning into place. 

“When we go to Imperia,” she said suddenly, “You should invite Brulee to come with us.” 

“Brulee?” surprise registered in his red eyes. 

“Yes. I didn’t speak much with her, but she seemed sweet,” which was true, if not a little… strange. And Tori didn’t want Katakuri to feel completely out of place, or alone in her homeland. He was her husband, and she would do what she could for him. This included. 

“I’ll ask her to come,” Katakuri agreed. His eyes curved ever so slightly and if Tori didn’t know better she would have thought he was smiling. “If you can use haki, are you a warrior then?” 

Tori shook her head regretfully, sending a few small strands of hair falling against her delicate cheeks, dusted with pink. She brushed them away carefully, minding that none got caught in her flower printed lips. 

“No,” she confessed, “My sister is the fighter. She’s strong, and fast, and clever. I’m afraid that I’m just pretty.” 

Katakuri sat straighter. “You not  _ just  _ pretty.” 

Tori wasn’t sure which one of them was more surprised by him. Katakuri, by complimenting her, or Tori. It was something that no one had ever told her before. Not her father, not her siblings, not any of the man that had tried to win her favor and her crown. 

_ Beautiful, _ they said _ , stunning. Unparallelled. Enrapturing. Enamoring. The Lady Moon set upon the earth.  _

Yet. 

_ Yet  _ here was Katakuri, her husband, who had her hand and her crown and owed her no flowery words or even any effort, telling her that she was not  _ just  _ pretty. 

There was a flash of red behind his scarf before he dropped his chin further in. 

“I’ll call Brulee,” he said abruptly. And left, just like that, leaving Tori sitting in the sun that slanted through the open sides, watching him go.

* * *

Tori was grateful. 

In the months she had spent away from her homeland, little had changed. The ports were still bustling, vibrant and bright. It echoed and sang with the voices of her people, accented with a tongue half forgotten. They were forbidden, by the Celestial Dragons, to speak in the voices of their ancestors, but the flow of words still remained and though everyone would deny it to their dying day most still practiced it behind the closed doors of their homes. 

Tori breathed in the sea-salt air, the thick fragrance of lavender, lacquer and the sweet wind of home. Komugi was nice, in its own ways, but it was not her home. It was here that she was finally free of the eternal watch of the Homie’s, and the weight of their gaze faded from her shoulders as they came into port. 

It came with a sense of freedom that she had nearly forgotten. She had had so little, and what she did have she treasured. 

Imperia stretched out before them, green and vast. It’s the largest of all the islands of the archipelago, distinct by the two mountain peaks that reached their snow-gleaning summits into the sky above. Blossoming between them, visible even from the coast, was Veleia. 

A massive castle that sat dead center between the twin peaks of Fratello and Sorella, the brother and sister. Between them grew the capital city, and in it the sprawling palace. The towers stretched to the sky, the highest on the left and the smallest on the right, descending in turn. 

Veleia got its name from those towers, shaped like a sail on a ship. 

It was the biggest castle in their archipelago, and the biggest city in equal measures. It had been Tori’s childhood playground, and it was still her brother and sisters home. One day she would return to it, and the spider-silk throne that lay within. 

They coasted into the port, coming to a halt. The harbor master and a troop of Gemma’s soldiers were there to help tie them down and escort them. The big ship that they took into the Bay of Stars, docked at Panarea. Large ships were not permitted into the bay itself, they had to be docked at Panarea, or Urbino and traded for smaller vessels that would bring one further inland. In the winter months those small boats, sloops mostly and flat barges, would take her up the river to Veleia. In the summer she and the rest of the court came to Casale Alto, the last castle before they entered the Breach. 

Tori and her handmaidens moved swiftly from the four masted barque that flew Big Moms jolly roger proudly, out onto the docks. They crossed the shoal, thick grey stone that rose from the seafloor and came near making the Bay of Stars a lake when low tide set in. It kept the bay safe from invasions, and anyone who didn’t know it was there ran the risk of destroying their ship on their way in. Lined outside of it were clippers and schooners that flew the Imperian flag. Two towers, one black and one red, and an eclipse hanging in the sky between them. Rather plain, Tori would have personally preferred an animal. Like a direwolf, or a dragon, or something else like that. 

A quetzalcoatlus. A giant goldfish. 

But, an eclipse wasn’t so bad. 

Tori stepped up onto the sloop first, holding her balance carefully. Her boots were low heeled , and hidden by her long skirts, the deep blue of the sea. The ship dipped beneath the weight of her husband and his sister, who was at least more of the size of her people. 

Katakuri was still the largest human being on the island. He would be forced to duck and dodge doorframes the entire visit. Tori was thankful it was only he and his sister, and not their mother who was coming along.

According to their traditions, the ones of Imperia, a bride would visit home within a certain frame of time, two weeks, typically, though as they had gone quit far away that time had been extended. To ease any fears of the parents, and to prove that the couple could get along travelling , and that things were well and their union was strong.

_ Ours is hardly a union at all, _ Tori thought to herself. She would not share such thoughts out loud, but still the words from their nights whispered themselves through her ears, warring for her attention.

_ You’re not just pretty. _

_ Mama told me to. _

Tori tapped her fingers against her side, forcing herself to stand tall at the prow of the ship. As soon as everyone was aboard they were pushed off of the shoal and sent coasting forwards with the wind in the sails that bore the twin banners, the pirates Jolly Roger and her own eclipsed castle. The warm coastal winds pushed them forwards, across the Bay of Stars, its waves glittering in the sunlight, and unto the Breach. Where the land on either side north and south of the Bay came together, almost touching, before opening once more, the Breach was an extension of a bay that stretched far into Imperia, forming a gulf that lead in from the bay. Here the water was warmer, pushed in by strong ocean currents that flowed across the shoal, and bringing with them all manner of fish.

In the middle of the Breach, which lead almost all the way up to Tori’s home, sat an island. Ischia was a small dollop of land in the center of the Breach, bit enough to hold the city of Trajan, her castle, and world renowned hot springs that left the island constantly steaming like a cup of tea. Small fishing villages also dotted her shoreline, white buildings with red, green, and orange stucco roofs. As they drew further inland the sounds of Imperia rose around them.

Bird song, and the deeper prowl of wind that passed through trees. Far off the sound of cities, merely a dull chatter of people and animals going along their lives. If Tori listened very closely she could hear the Greenmen singing in the trees.

Steadily, as they drew nearer to the edge of the Breach, where it was fed by the mouth of the Logula river, people began to appear at the edge of the forests that surrounded them. They dotted the rising cliffs that lifted higher and higher the further inland they went, all out to see their beautiful princess and her strange new husband.

As they grew closer to the river water grew rougher and the boat pitched side to side. 

The river came rushing down the steep inclines of the mountains and it took four men on each side to catch thick cables from the shoreline and attach them to the ship. Thick hooks caught on specially made clasps that attached to their sloops. They pulled taut on either side of the boat until Tori and her entourage were being pulled straight up the river. The Logula was as close to being straight as any river ever was, and was so steep it was more like a water fall. Tori ushered Brulee off to the side of the cabin and showed her the ropes to hold onto at they were wenched forwards. The thick cables pulled them forwards and the wind pushed them along. Tori let the fresh water spray across her skin from the side of the boat. It shook when it struck white water and strained against the cables.

Katakuri stood beside them, surefooted, but that didn’t stop Tori from reaching out and grasping his hand when the water got rougher. Just in case. It was warm and calloused in her own and though he didn’t pay her much mind he didn’t pull away either.

The Logula was always the roughest part of the journey, and the one that felt like it was the longest. Tori could move from her position of she risked falling backwards and off. 

Going down was much more fun than going up.

At last they crested the top and were pulled into Lake Logula. A queue of boats waiting to make the trip down were lined up around the shore, their decks filled with onlookers trying to catch a glimpse. They sailed across the lake until they were brought to the other side, where Logula the town lay. The ancient towers that rose in front of them had wide opening in front that the cables came from. The cables were long and looped around all the way at the bottom of the river and the end of the Breach. They were as old as Imperia itself. The ship was drawn between them and the hooks were released before they were sent back the way they’d come.

They sailed through Logula, a city split in half by the river that would finally deposit them at the base of Veleia. The streets were lined here as well, hundreds of people watching. Tori ignored it, but she could feel the two she stood between tense with the attention. Still holding Katakuri’s hand Tori stepped forwards, no longer bound to hold onto the ship. With her newly freed hand she waved, Princess Diaries style, and the crowd roared with the cheers of her people.

Enamored with her beauty, as they always were, a cheer rang loud enough to deafen a man.

Tori felt no swell of pride nor vanity. If anything it made her nervous. Men did foolish things for love. She felt, more than anyone else’s, the eyes of her husband on her delicate, soft face. His fingers wrapped around her own and this time Tori did feel a lightness inside of her.

They stood, the future of Imperia, where the world could see them, and Tori could only imagine the picture they painted. A hulking foreign pirate dressed in leathers and spikes, and their demure, pretty princess in her soft silk skirts and sweet smiles.

Not the traditional picture, but times were certainly changing. Roger had assured that.

He had been their protector before Big Mom, before his death, when he was sweeping the world up in his race to Raftel and his daring exploits. Tori had met him, however briefly, on his trip across her own island. She had been young then, just a scrap of a pretty teenager who wanted to see a king before he’d even gotten his crown.

She remembered him, and his two little cabin boys, with fondness.

While Tori was thinking they finally themselves vanished their journey. Nestled between the twin peaks sat the gleaming white walls and soaring towers of Valeia. Her home.

It felt different now, at least to Tori as she walked off of the sloop and onto the shores. The towering walls seemed less impenetrable, and in its own way less of a prison. Tori had ventured beyond their shores, beyond their shoal, and into the great vast ocean beyond. She had seen a castle made of a cake and witnessed a giantess and her children. She had left and returned and secured the safety of her people with a sacrifice of her own.

Perhaps someone would tell stories of her. Likely, she would be just another name lost in the obscurity of time.

The great Infinite Gate was pitch dark, a sharp contrast to the paleness of the walls. It had stood for a thousand years, guarding Valeia against harm and opening only for those given leave by Tori’s own family. Now they swung open on ancient hinges and welcomed their wayward daughter once more into their embrace. Carved intricately upon them were long vines and faded flowers that had chipped over time. Yet, the gate stood strong.

Tori and Katakuri walked in, and she tucked her arm in his. Back straight, chin up and smiling enough to dazzle a blind man Tori walked the growing train of followers to the palace proper. Through the long streets, away from the traders and the merchants and up the clattering streets of the craftsmen. Blacksmiths anvils were quiet this day, and the loomhouse had ceased its forever clacking. Pottery wheels did not squeak or whir.

All those that used them were in the streets, watching their procession go by. Tori lead the way with the giant of a man that could no more hide himself than she.

The palace keep, thick walls decorated in splendid gems and carvings, rose above them with her towers in their procession. The periwinkle sky, long fingers of orange streaking through, cast shadows and brought light upon it.

They were greeted in the courtyard by her father, her brother, and her sister.

They were both pretty enough. Golden haired, like their father, with the pale blue eyes of their mother. Tori alone had her same dark hair, a black so dark it was almost blue. Each of them had high cheekbones, but where Lucien’s nose was straight and narrow, Gemma’s had been made crooked through many breaks. She had their fathers strong jaw and stubborn mouth while Lucien was delicate in even his wide mouth. Both of them kept their golden hair cropped short, and out of the way.

Tori stood out amongst them, a black sheep, a sweet lamb, and a terrible beauty.

Lysander, his crown heavy on his head, stepped forwards to clasp her hands. Only then did she release Katakuri from her hold. Her father kissed her on each cheek, a gesture Tori returned.

“Victoria,” he spoke loudly, letting his voice reach the ensemble staff. Maids and footmen and stable boys and soldiers, all lined up in the courtyard to see her. His eyes skated to her husband but he didn’t dare try the same courtesies. “Katakuri. Welcome home.”

The staff dipped low bows and deep curtsies, heads dropping to chests.

“Welcome home, Princess Victoria,” the all chorused, deafeningly loud. “Welcome to Imperia, Prince Katakuri!”

Tori stepped away from her father to look out over the conglomeration. She smiled genially and nodded to the assembled, breaking the spell that bound them all together. She looked up at her husband, who despite his best efforts still gave off of an air of discomfort. He looked at him before he mimicked her movement.

In a flurry of practiced movement the staff descended on them. Their trunks were taken and orders were barked, maids fluttered off to their apartments and the cooks and kitchen staff bolted for the palace. Pages rushed off to spread word to anyone who hadn’t attended their grand entrance and the steward, Astolfo, stepped forwards with the head maid, Giulia.

Astolfo had been their steward for longer than Tori had been alive. He was a slight man, and in his youth his hair had been the pink of cotton candy. Now with age he had shrunk to be even smaller, and his hair was white with only a few pink streaks going through it.

Giulia was a bit different. She was a tall stork of a woman with a bony, hooked nose. Her pale hair was pinned smartly behind her head, and her brown eyes were ever sparkling with mirth. She had come into her position almost fifteen years ago, shortly after Tori’s mother had died. Tori had a special place in her heart for Giulia, and whatever propriety said she hugged her when she was close enough.

“Hello, Giulia,” she kissed each cheek in time with Giulia.

“Little bird, we were worried you’d forget where you nest,” Giulia teased her.

“Never,” Tori promised. She hugged her one more time before she pulled back, smiling at her.

“We have an apartment prepared for everyone, including your guests. You can dine there tonight, we’ll put off the actual welcome party until tomorrow.”

“You’re an angel,” Tori told her. She didn’t feel like dealing with court intrigues right now.

“Mmmm, perhaps,” she looked over Tori’s shoulder, up at Katakuri who had come to stand behind her with Brule with him. If she thought anything of the pair of them, she didn’t react outwardly. Thank goodness.

“Giulia, this is Katakuri, and his sister Brulee,” she introduced, gesturing to the pair of them.

“Pleased,” Giulia dipped a proper curtsey to the pair of them. Neither of them seemed to know what to think of her actions. People certainly kowtowed to them, but this was not quite the same thing. “I have a room prepared for my lady. Someone will be along to show you to the Silver Room in the morning for breakfast, with the rest of the court ladies. I’m sure my princes can show you to the Gold Room,” Giulia added, looking at Katakuri.

Tori touched her arms. “He eats privately, Giulia,” she said firmly. Not an argument, a statement. Giulia’s brows furrowed. She looked between them before she nodded.

“As you say, my lady.”

“The men and women eat separately?” Brulee asked.

“Only for breakfasts,” Tori assured her.

“So the married women don’t need to wait on their husbands,” Giulia added helpfully. Tori touched her arm, drawing her attention.

“Giulia, will you please show Brulee to her apartments?” Tori asked.

Giulia nodded. “Of course, my lady. We’ve changed the royal apartments for the accommodations. I trust you can show your  _ husband _ along. “ There was a note of teasing in her voice that made Tori narrow her eyes and hide a smile in the corner of her mouth.

“I think I can manage. Thank you, Giulia.”

Giulia bowed to her before she turned to the Charlotte sister. “If you will, my lady?”

While she lead Brulee away Tori and Katakuri went their own. He didn’t say much, and her handmaids were too busy unpacking an running around to re-familiarize themselves with the keep. It was bigger now, Tori realized. They had been remodeling. Making room for Katakuri and any giant children he was going to have by her. So tall were the doors that he didn’t even have to duck.

Tori didn’t know which one of them was more surprised.

The long hallways that housed the royal apartments was largely deserted. They would have been prepared long before they arrived, and by now they were largely deserted. It was just the two of them, and she hear Katakuri’s voice for the first time in hours.

“What did she mean about waiting for a husband?” he asked.

Tori peered up at him.

“In Imperia, a married woman can’t start eating until their husband has. Or at least , nobility don’t by our own traditions,” which was sexist, but Tori couldn’t change that.

Katakuri looked at her, his eyes dark with some thought Tori couldn’t read. She stopped in front of a door that had no been so big when last she’d been here, but was still in the same place.

She pushed the door open and the pair stepped inside.

Her already large bed had been exchanged for one that could easily fit the family of a normal human being, or in this case, she and Katakuri. The secretary in the corner was just as she’s left it and the small sitting area had been enlarged. The two doors, to the closet and the bathroom, were also bigger.

Both Tori and Katakuri’s luggage was at the foot of the bed. When Katakuri saw that, he stiffened.

“We’re not sharing a room,” he said firmly.

Tori went over to the bed and hopped up onto. It was wider, but not so much higher up.

“We are married,” she reminded him. “And we need to put on at least an act that you like me. If the courtesans,” which were not prostitutes in this country, in any case, “see a weakness they’ll take advantage of it.”

“I don’t care. We’re not sharing.”

Tori looked up at him. Her blue eyes narrowed minutely. Then, her face smoothed once more, serene. It didn’t really matter, in the end. As she told Madelle, the only person who’s opinion on their union mattered was Big Mom. No one elses, not even theirs, was relevant.

“If you’re worried about you face,” she said slowly, “Whatever it is you’re hiding won’t bother me.”

His shoulders tensed and he looked ready to fight, so Tori smoothed along, “Or, if it’s that important to you, we’ll keep the lights out and the curtains drawn, and I won’t see anything at all.”

Like East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Only she would not break her promise.

Given she was cheating, but that was unimportant.

Tori didn’t know what she looked like. She was going for earnest and patient and inviting.

Whatever Katakuri saw when he searched her face, his shoulders finally slumped. Given up.

“If you look, I’ll know,” there was a warning in his voice. Tori was reminded, once more, that this was a very dangerous man. And yet, she felt no danger from him.

She smiled.

“Then I’ll be sure I don’t.


	6. Factitious First Impressions

Tori was as good as her word. That night, when they went for bed, she drew the curtains and he snuffed the lights, leaving the pair of them in pitch and utter darkness. Tori climbed into her part of the bed and Katakuri his. There was space enough for another full grown man in the bed between them, and though she would have welcomed some contact Tori was smart enough to know that Katakuri, in his shyness, might panic.

So she kept her hands to herself and when the morning came she rose without him. She dressed herself in a simple lace robe over her long nightdress and left the room. No one would expect her to be in finery for breakfast.

She shut the door quietly, leaving Katakuri sleeping in their shared room, and made her way down the long hallway. The ancient floor was worn soft and cold under her thin slippers, and sunlight streamed in from skylights above her head. She walked into the Silver Hall with a halo of light floating across her sea-dark hair.

The Silver room was home to three long tables equipped with benches. One was for the staff, who had already had their breakfast, another for the soldier girls, who would eat later, and the third was reserved for the nobility.

For Tori and the other rich, high ranking women she had grown up with.

She was one of the last to arrive. She took her seat amongst the others, already chattering. It was all idle, easy gossip, nothing that would make its way into court or true intrigues. This was a place for eating, not a place for doing business.

Tori piled her plate with fruits, took a bowl for yogurt and a pair of hard boiled eggs. Most of the others were eating pastries. Someone handed her a cappuccino.

Tori joined the idle chatter. She alone did not stop when the door opened once more and Brulee walked in, sticking out like a sore thumb. Her clothes were plain, her face was scarred and her hair was a mess. Tori adored her.

“Everyone,” she spoke, “ I would like to introduce my sister-by-law, the Lady Charlotte Brulee.”

Brulee’s smile was somehow both awkward and unnerving. She took an empty seat, and started piling her plate without saying much to anyone.

“If that’s a Lady, I’m a cat,” Seline muttered, loud enough to be heard by everyone from Selbo to Tori herself. Brulee’s shoulders lifted and drew together and her smile spread wider and tensed. Tori stood up abruptly. She walked around the table, grabbing a bowl and a pitcher of milk. A strange anger possessed her, pushing her forwards.

She brought it over to set it in front of Seline, pushing her plate away.

“You,” she said as she poured milk into the bowl, “Are Seline Butelli. Your father is a duke, and you are not even a duchess, when you marry your brother with inherit and you will hope for the best _. I_ , am Victoria di Imperia, crown princess and your future queen. And if I say that my friend is a lady _well_.”

She set the pitcher aside and nudged the bowl of milk towards a stunned Seline, “You had best start lapping _kitty_.”

Dead silence descended upon the women in the room. Tori had never been so aggressive, so uncivilized.

Yet now she stood, throwing her rank around in defense of a stranger who even Tori barely knew. But she would not tolerate it. She would not.

Satisfied with the mortified and red face Seline, and knowing that some form of retribution would come her way, Tori returned to her seat and continued on like nothing had happened to begin with.

* * *

Tori sucked in her stomach while Madelle laced up the back of her dress, pulling it taught. It pushed her tits up and gave her the illusion of not having organs. On top of the underdress and its laces draped a long length of blue as dark as magpie wings across her, falling straight down to the floor. On top of that she dropped a shorter length of imperial purple that fell only to Tori’s upper thighs. The edges were carefully embroidered in patterns, inlaid with fine, miniscule diamonds that shone when she moved like stars in the sky. It clasped at her shoulders with silver fibula adorned with a diamond skull. Rather grim, but befitting her new status. 

“Beautiful, as always,” Madelle told her. She pulled her hair and piled it in tight ringlets atop Tori’s head before binding it with a thick ribbon encrusted with constellations. 

“Of course,” Tori said absently, looking at herself in the mirror. She was a vision. She was beautiful and beloved by her people. It felt false. More so now than it had in a long, long time. 

Tori slipped on her soft silk slippers. The sun was burning in the west, dipping towards the cradle of the sea. 

Her mother lullaby came back to her again. She had learned it first in the Green Tongue, the one spoken in the forests. 

  
  


_Roll forth Ocean mother_

_Carry you children far_

_Shine bright moon hung o’er_

_Watch over their tepid flight_

_Bring with you, Great mother_

_The silver crashing mist_

_Protect your sons and daughters_

_Great Oars push to safety_

_The tide shall guard the night_

_Lift high sea walls honor_

_Shine under sunstones bright_

_Stand tall, brother-sister_

_Guard each truth and steel_

_Cradle those, earth protector,_

_Crowned in stone from their ordeal_

_Senten them moon sister_

_The sorrow of the earth_

Tori hummed softly. She knew there were more verses, but Dolce had never shared the full song with her. She told her that the sorrow of the earth was too sad for a child, but when she grew up she would sing it to her. 

She never got the chance. 

After Gemma was born, Dolce got sick. A post partum depression, she stopped sleeping, didn’t eat as much as she used to, and she was left open to infection. 

It had been common, in the first days of Imperia as its own nation, shortly after the Novara civil war eight hundred years ago. A disease that swept through the vulnerable, cultivated by dying on the battlefield it was given free reign, passed through blood and sweat and tears. Or perhaps the air, no one had known and still no one did. It killed within twenty four hours. 

The dark spots appeared, and the children were taken away. Dolce was quanteened, and she died. Followed by five servants, all four her handmaidens, and three doctors that tried to help her. They were blessed than the disease had stopped there, and hadn’t destroyed the entire city. Blessed, people said, but Tori and Lucien had lost their mother and Gemma had never even gotten to see her. 

Now, Tori was a grown woman, married already, and Dolce would never see it. Would never know the woman that she had grown to be. Beautiful, and the daughter-by-law of an empress. One day, as the eldest child, she would be queen. 

Dolce would not see that either. 

Lapa finished with her hair, spreading a silver net encrusted in diamonds across it while Varinia lay her lips on. At last, she was ready. 

Tori turned to the door. 

“Let’s get this party started,” she joked lightly. Madelle, dressed in fine sapphire, skirts, nodded her assent swiftly. Lapa and Varinia took their places beside her. Aelia and Daria were hidden in the walls, in identical dresses to switch places with her if need be. 

The gaggle of girls walked out of the room and into the hall. Katakuri had been shooed away some time ago, to dress himself properly. If he showed up in anything other than leather, Tori would be privately amazed. 

They turned down the hallway and descended the stairs, meeting up with Brulee as they reached the bottom. She was flanked by the rest of Tori’s handmaidens, who had dressed her up in fine a lavender gown the color of her hair that draped across her long body well, bordered in pale blue. They had painted her lips and sculpted her face, tamed her hair and braided it into a crown adorned with blue roses. 

Tori offered Brulee, who was closer to her size but still taller by a good head, her arm. Brulee took it, looking at her with a new light and together the pair walked into the atrium. Long vines dripped down from the ceiling, covered in wisteria, bougainvillea, and honeysuckle. The impluvium was filled with false lilies that held candles in the center and glowed faintly as they floated. 

Tori took Brulee to the edge of the water and sat with her while her handmaidens scattered. they had their own duties to attend to. 

Tori could see her sister, dressed in her uniform, standing off near the door with her captains. Her brother was talking to a judge near the spread table of fruits, cheeses, and wine. Nothing that Tori couldn't eat, but with Katakuri expected to be in attendance she couldn't either way. 

Unfortunate, but she’d eaten before hand. Tori was no fool. 

She chatted idly with Brulee until the attention in the room moved to the staircase once more. She turned with the rest of the room to find Katakuri standing at the top. He was wearing an actual shirt that fit him well, dark and bordered in red to match his scarf. His pants were still leather and his boots were spiked, but he was missing the knee pads. 

Tori stood and glided towards the stairs. A silence fell across the room, or perhaps she simply wasn’t paying attention. His eyes were on her, and for the first time in a long time she felt a longing pressing against her ribs. 

For someone so large he walked with a shocking amount of grace. He descended the marble staircase and when Tori offered him her hand he took it in his. A smile pulled at her lips, threatening the false one layered over top with silver glitter.

Katakuri kept his eyes on her and she her eyes on him as she guided him to his sister. He sat, crossing his legs, and Tori stood at his side, tucking her arm in his. 

The band started playing soft strings, a low hum that build beneath her bones. Tori let herself stand close to Katakuri, for once taller than him, but true to her word, she didn’t try to sneak a peek. His arm was strong and warm beneath her hand and she felt that heat in her ribs once more. 

While they sat, she talked, pointing out courtesans, officials, and visitors scattered around the room. 

“That one,” she said, gesturing to a man in the corner that dressed in what appeared to be plain street clothes, no more than a tunic and leggings “is Orso Orseolo. He is a long trusted friend of my brother, sister and I but he won’t take any lands we offer and so he’s not a real nobleman at all. He says titles give him hives,” she smiled like she was sharing a conspiracy, “because he’s not got a title or lands but still has our backing and speaks with our voice, the rest of the court is terrified of him.” 

She moved on. “The woman in the green dress is Arcielda Severan. She has quite the scandal about her divorcing Pietro, the one with the red boots and the frown lines. Still, she’s a good person, reliable and loyal to a fault. Once stabbed Chealsea Pruili with a fork and proposed Oblivion for her and hers when she tried to imply that disfigured babies shouldn’t be kept. Chealsea is the one in the brown gown with the bear bracelet.“ 

“How do you keep track of all of these people?” Brulee asked her, peering up at Tori with her same eerie smile. 

Tori shrugged. “It’s not very hard. I just do.” 

She was surprised when Katakuri’s low voice reached her. 

“You said that flowers mean things. Do those?” he looked towards the flowers that dripped down the walls in long lines of white, purple, and pink. Tori felt her heart lighten at the interest Katakuri paid, and perhaps a bit at the attention in general. 

“Bougainvillea, the pink ones, are for ‘peace and free trade’. We have ambassadors from the other Novara islands here. The Honeysuckle is for affection, fraternal and devoted. Wisteria, the purple, is for love, sensuality, support, sensitivity, bliss and tenderness. They’re for us.” 

She felt his pulse under her fingers. Felt his shoulders draw together. 

She drew a slow circle across a silver scar that crossed his arm, soothing. 

“What’s oblivion?” Brulee asked next. Tori’s eyes darted again to Arcielda, speaking quietly to Alton Izard. 

“Oblivion is the greatest disgrace for an Imperian,” she told them quietly. “It’s to have your entire existence erased. From the hearts of men and the Hall of Records. Your name will never be spoken again and you will be lost to the sands of time. Made into nothing and no body.” 

Tori’s voice grew soft as silk and quiet as the grave. She was well aware of the attention that the two foreigners were paying her, rapt in her words. 

Arcielda broke away from Alton and came over to them as the music picked up. She took Brulee’s hand and tugged her to her feet, sweeping her away to dance. Tori was left with Katakuri, who didn’t seem the type to waltz. 

Brûlée was about as graceful as a colt, new and ungainly on its long, long legs. Bit Arcielda didn’t seem to mind. Her son wasn’t present, still just a child, and in any case he hated crowds. 

Without really thinking about it Tori traced the strong lines of Katakuri’s arm. She kept talking him, telling him about the people around them. Where they came from. The positions they held. Their influence. Their temperments, histories, old grudges and new ones. 

“Some of them are like me,” she told him. “Charlotte Victoria di Imperia. The ‘di’ is just a place holder. It means ‘of’. If they have that in their name, they are as old as the island. If their family name is all their claim, they’re newer blood. There aren’t many ‘di’s left to us. It’s been too long. Mostly, it’s my family.” 

His voice was low and deep beside her when he spoke. 

“Your family is very small.” 

Tori smiled. Small, showing now teeth. A grin was threatening a rude. “Yours is very large. And new, isn’t it?” 

“Mama is the first,” he confirmed, but Tori already knew that. She hummed softly, her voice a quiet melody. The band picked a quicker tune and she watched Arcielda lead Brulee through a clumsy spin across the floor. Arcielda was a sweet woman, and a complete lesbian. 

“And you are the second. Third?” 

“Second son, third child.” 

“That must be a lot of presure,” Tori mused. Katakuri shot her a look. 

“You’re a _princess_.” 

Tori smiled again, almost wide enough to split her false lips. “But I don’t have to work for that. My whole life has been presented on a silver plate. I don’t need to choose anything to get my future.” 

Katakuri’s head tilted ever so slightly. Once more Tori found she couldn’t read the look in his eyes. She wanted, suddenly, impulsively, to steal him away. Drag him out into the gardens and sit him in the grass and unravel his scarf so she could _see_. 

But Tori was more well behaved than that. She let herself lean against his shoulder instead. Arcielda dipped Brulee low, until her hair almost touched the floor before pulling her back to her feet. Katakuri never looked away from them. 

“You’re very protective of her,” Tori commented idly. He stiffened minutely under her fingers. Tori repressed a wince of guilt. That was right. Brulee’s scar. 

“She’s my sister,” he said simply. Tori didn’t respond. Her own relationship with Gemma was much less… good. Gemma was a fighter, a general, hungry for power and stubborn. She was vicious and able. Tori was none of those things. She wanted no power, she fought for nothing. She was no vicious, so long as she could help it. She had been an honors student, she had competed in S.T.E.M., she had won academic decathlons almost single handed. 

She wanted none of those victories again. She had no ambition. She coudln’t. Ambitious people drew too much attention, had too many expectations placed upon her and here- 

No one expected her to be anything but pretty here. 

“She told me what you did this morning.” 

Tori looked at him, brows pinching minutely. She’d almost forgotten what she’d done. “Oh. Seline? She’s never been a kind person…” 

“You didn’t have to stick up for her,” Katakuri said. There was a note of suspicion in his voice that pained Tori. 

“You forget,” she said quietly. “She is my sister now too.” 

She patted his arm and released him, the magic broken, to go find Orso. Her friend caught her hand when she appeared at his side and kissed each cheek. Familiar, kind, with a hint of concern in his soft brown eyes. He talked to her about nothing. Court gossips, hail storms, his sister. The pair of them walked to find others that Tori had grown up with, just as painted and false as she was. 

There were three genuine people in the room. She was not one of them.


	7. Musings of a Monster

Very rarely did Katakuri find himself in bed at a time deemed acceptable by other human beings. There was work to be done, especially on the island he’d been gifted not very long ago. Old spats he had to oversee, security details for him to check in on. And, now, a wife to keep track of. At first it had been to avoid her. Now, it was a raw curiosity. A need to know that she was nearby. 

So he was awake the night she snuck out. 

At first, he didn’t even recognize her. He thought it was one of the flock of women that followed her around. They all had dark hair and blue eyes, and looked oddly alike. If Katakuri hadn’t know better, he would have assumed that they were all sisters. 

But no, it was her. A wraith, walking quickly in a thin dress and sandals. Already she was almost at the gate. 

_ Running _ . 

Something in Katakuri’s stomach churned at the idea. He didn’t want her to run. He hadn’t expected her too. She hadn’t run from the alter, she hadn’t tried to avoid him when he would have made it easy for her.  _ She  _ was the one who kept finding  _ him  _ and walking with him, talking with him, her sweet voice a dove song in the dawn light and a wind through the willows at dusk. 

Why would she run now? 

Katakuri turned away from his original path, circling the chateau one last time, to follow in her footsteps. His long legs carried him after her and it barely took him any time to catch up to her. 

She stood at the coast. 

Her sandals were set aside, in the sand, and she stood at the edge of the ocean. Katakuri stopped at the edge of the greenery, his boots soundless and his hulking presence carefully concealed. He couldn't understand what she was doing. 

She took a step, then another, and another, until the water was lapping up towards her knees. Her dress floated around her, encompassed by the reflection of the moon the floated in the water. Her dark hair floated like a shadow around her shoulders and down her back, obscuring most of her from his view. 

A change in the air caught his attention. He stood straighter when the waves that had been touching her legs spread around her in a perfect circle until it didn’t make contact anymore. The sand of the sea floor spread beneath her feet. Katakuri watched her walk deeper into the water, entranced with the way it warped around her without spilling so much as a drop in her hair. For a moment she disappeared, the water churning restlessly above her head. 

When she rises again, from the depths, no sea water shining on her hair only moonlight to shine in is sea-dark waves his breath catches. The water rushes back to her and her eyes open, clear and bright even in the dark of night. 

Katakuri has never seen her more beautiful. 

Free of the false painted lips that make her mouth look so small, and heavy make up that hid the faint dusting of freckles he could finally see across the bridge of her nose. Stray whisps of dark hair flutter with the ocean breeze, caressing her cheeks. She looks softer now. Less like porcelain, more  _ real _ . 

Somehow, she seems less far away now. Within his reach in a way that she isn’t even when they touch. 

“I thought you were asleep,” she says, and it’s only then that Katakuri realizes he’s forgotten to hide himself and been seen. The high edge of his scarf hides the hue that creeps across the scars on his cheeks. 

He looks between her and the ocean, one to the other, before he settles upon her. He struggles to find something to say. In the end, he settles for the truth. 

“I thought you might be leaving.” His voice comes out flat. Easier than the shiver that tries to work its way through his throat. He cannot show weakness, he cannot allow himself to be seen to her. Not yet. Strong, intimidating. That’s what he is. 

But does he really want to intimidate his wife? 

_ Can  _ he? 

Tori shakes her head. “I am your wife. If I go I go with you. You are coming with us back to Imperia next week, aren’t you?”

Katakuri can’t fight the swell of warm and affection that buffers its way through his chest. He barely hears himself say, “Mama told me to.”

He can’t explain it. There’s no real change in her expression. Still inexplicably smiling at him. Her cheeks flush with the cool night air. But something has changed. Something in her eyes and Katakuri realizes that he’s said something wrong. 

He can only watch, tongue thick in his mouth, as she walks past him and into the trees. Beautiful, shadowed, and real. 

* * *

Katakuri was making a mess of things. 

He’d done it thrice now, that he knew of. 

He made her talk about her dead mother. He did something at the shore that closed a door between them. And now, he’s done something else. 

He doesn’t know for any certainty what exactly he’s done. He feels like it would be easier to ask, to confront her about the strange distance between them now. It’s not a gaping chasm. Just a small valley he could feel beginning to yawn. 

Why? He struggled to understand. 

Victoria was an enigma to him. 

She smiled at him kindly, she defended his sister from her own people. She was soft. 

There was something distant to her too. There always had been, even when they had been growing close before. Something she was hiding. A scarf of her own, in the form of false lips and fine gems. 

He had seen it drop, once. Only once, when she had told him about her Haki practices. Her eyes had glowed and her teeth had shown with a smile that was all but voracious. 

Katakuri wanted to see that. He wanted to see more of the hunger in her eyes, more of the brilliance and creativity that lived inside her. 

Maybe he was over thinking things. 

Maybe he had only seen what he wanted to. 

Either way, he needed to find a way to make up his slights against her. 

Perhaps one of her handmaids would have an idea? 

That would involve asking them for their help, and the idea made Katakuri nervous. Mama had always taught him that it was a sign of weakness, and weakness was something that she didn’t tolerate. 

Stuck, Katakuri turned over in the bed he now shared with his wife. She lay beside him, shrowded in darkness that hid her from him as well as it hid him from her. He could just barely make out the shape of her body, so small compared to his own. He wanted to reach out and touch her. He wanted to light a candle and end the game of hide and seek he had trapped them in. He wanted- 

He didn’t know what he wanted. 

He wanted the distance between them gone. 


	8. Rancorous Relationships

This was the part that Tori was not looking forward to. 

The sun was warm on her back, heating the thin blue cloth of her short sleeved shirt and warming her black pants, so thick they looked like a skirt. Even for fighting she was dressed to draw the eye, to look the lady with a thin rapier in hand and her hair piled high and tight. 

Gemma, ever the rebel, stood before her in plain fatigues. There was a broad sword in her hand, contrary to the thin rapier that rested familiarly in Tori’s. She hadn’t held it since before the wedding. She could already feel the familiar grip, the way it pulled at her delicate skin. 

She had only a few minutes to win. 

They stood in the courtyard, with only a small audience. Tori was thankful that he husband and Brulee weren’t a part of it. She didn’t want them to see this sight. 

Gemma made the first move. She always did. The long tip of the halbird lashed out, sweeping by Tori’s head as she stepped to the side. She was light on her feet, graceful and quickly, and she managed to doge Gemma’s attacks for a time. 

The younger princess chased her across the yard, cornering her until she was forced to block and parry. Gemma had her on the ropes from the start, forcing her around the yard until she had to fight back. She swung her sword, twisting out of the way of another sweep of Gemma’s. She thrust, getting within inches of stabbing Gemma in the stomach before she was forced backwards again by a shining streak of metal. Their weapons may have been dulled for the practice yard, but to be hit would still hurt. 

Tori knew well from her own experience. 

Gemma was stronger than her. Her hits were harder, leaving Tori’s hands tingling with each block. 

Tori spun to the side, avoiding when Gemma brought the flat end of her spear up to smack Tori in the chin. She kept many of the same tactics. Some things never changed. 

Tori felt like she managed to keep up for longer than usual. Something in her spurned her on, and even when her palms started to burn with the friction of sword play she stayed true, arching out of the way and slice in at Gemma’s powerful defence. 

Gemma was stronger of the pair. She was stronger of the all the Imperian royal family, and all of the military too. She hadn’t gotten where she was on nepotism. Her sister was a vaunted warrior, and when she attacked it was hard enough to make Tori’s ears ring. 

Rapiers were no good for real blocking. The blades were small and thin and against something like a broadsword they’d just as likely be damaged as hold steady. So Tori coudln’t really block. She could deflect, change the rate of momentum and the angles into something that suited her better. 

In the end, the whole world was angles, force, acceleration, friction, inertia. Math. 

She could see it in her mind’s eye. The curves of the blade, the speed they moved at, the angles she needed to work with and move around and alter for herself. 

She could see the way Gemma set her feet, moved on her heels, lifted to her toes. She could see how close her elbows were to her ribs, how her shoulders bunched and curved. 

She could see where Gemma was going to strike. 

Tori was startled by a strang, foreign fire in her ribs. It burned through them, etching unto the bones her will. 

She pushed back. 

Gemma was forced to take a step or risk being cut above her eye. They flashed, darker than Tori’s own. Tori had never put up much of a fight. She didn’t see a reason to. Let Gemma be the general, the warrior, the fatale one. Tori was pretty, just pretty, and that was enough. 

The ache in her ribs disagreed. 

Tori ducked a sweep of a spear, dropping down to kick Gemma in the foot in the talus. Her sister stumbled, tried to stab down where Tori had been and knock her aside but for one Tori twisted away, was up before she could be struck, and thrust the dull point under Gemma’s arm. 

It pricked her shirt, where the seams kept the sleeves. If Tori had really been trying to kill her it would have pierced through her arm pit, and Gemma would have died. 

Instead, Gemma lunged backwards, bringing her spear between them to knock Tori’s long blade away, and that was the final push to end the fight. 

Blood dripped from Tori’s rapier. 

She lifted her left hand, above her head, and announced, “I give up.” 

Gemma was staring at her like she was some alien life form, while her handmaids converged on her like a tidal wave. Aelia took away her sword to be cleaned and set aside while Daria and Flora took hold of her hand. Madelle stood back at the edge, making four of her six handmaidens. There was a strange look in her pretty blue eyes. She, too, watched Tori as thought she was something new and interesting. 

Tori’s skin crawled and she felt sick with the attention. 

Daria prodded her sword hand, bleeding now with broken blisters and missing skin. It would heal within the week, and there wouldn’t be any scars to show that she had been injured in the first place. She knew this, they all did. It was not the first time it had happened. 

It always happened. She had to end fights fast or the friction would rip her skin from her muscles, destroy the precious fascia that held her body together. 

Tori let herself be escorted away, back inside. The fire in her ribs ebbed away until it was but an ember left and Tori had to wonder, what had come over her? 

* * *

The night was dark, but it held no terrors for her. 

The darkness hung around her like a cloak, familiar. Warm, was not a word she normally used to describe the night, but with a massive body sharing the bed with her it felt apt now. Tori soaked in the heat for a long time, awakened by the panging in her injured hand. She didn’t want to wake Katakuri. He’d been so on edge ever since they’d come to her home. He’d been on edge since their wedding night. 

Tori wished she could set him at ease, but she didnt know how. 

She wanted to tell him that he didn;t need to hide so much from her. She already knew . Buth that involved too much exposition for her to say. She wasn’t willing to tell all that she knew. She wanted to unwind his scarf and see his face and- 

And what? 

Tori let out a soft breath. 

She sounded like a child. Wishes and wants, she was so spoiled. 

There was an ache in her heart. She had wished, quietly, privately, and so very desperately for something out of this match. Something she had never had, and never would here. 

The silly wishes of a child when she was a woman grown. 

Tori held many secrets. She held the secrets of her mind, she held the secrets of her soul, and she held the secret of her heart, too. 

Her hand ached.

Tori sat up in the darkness. She didn’t light a lamp, staying true to her promise. She did slid out of the bed quietly onto the floor, barefoot and quiet. Her night gown hung around her in a shapeless mass and she moved across the floor like a phantom. She fumbled with the doorknob only a moment before slipping into the next room. 

Attached to her royal apartments were three rooms. A dressing room, a bathroom, and her closet. It was the dressing room that she entered. 

Only when she was securely inside did she light a lamp. Madelle lept the first aid kit elsewhere, but Tori didn’t need the whole thing. She only needed what she knew to be in her go bag. 

She, her sister and her brother had always been raised to be ready to leave if need be. They had hidden passages and mapped escape routes, and all of them had bags ready to go. Bags with money, food, water, plain clothes, and medicine. It was from this that Tori took a small jar and new strips of bandages. 

Her dressing room, for some reason, had a window and a window box that let in scattered moonlight when she drew back the curtains. 

This high up, she could only barely see the sea, black in the night in the distance. More than that she could see the greenery of her home, the late nearby, and the rest of the palace spread about. 

The sight is familiar but the darkness warps everything, shadows cloaking the world around her. 

Tori looks up when something moves to her side. Out of the other room comes the towering form of Katakuri. There was a light on behind him that cast long shadows across his face. Tori repressed a grimace. She’d been trying to ensure that he stayed asleep. And she had failed. 

Katakuri looked her over, his eyes stopping on her hand. They shot upwards. 

“You’re injured,” he said. She swore she could hear a frown. Katakuri had gotten his scarf wrapped around his face but it was low, low enough that she could see more of his scars than normal. She said nothing about it. 

“It’s nothing,” she shook her head. She had done it so many times in her life, she knew how to take care of burst blisters. This was just a side effect of her ‘blessing’ or whatever one might call it. 

Katakuri can to her side. He knelt down until he was level with her and she saw his hands move towards her before they aborted the mission. His eyes flickered to her face. Tori felt a smile cross her lips, unbound by falcities. It felt so strange, not to have her face hidden behind make up or her hair pinned elaborately. Liberating, perhaps. 

She offered him her injured hand. 

He took it, carefully, peeling away the old bandages with practice that told her that she was not the only person here with practice patching wounds. They fell to the floor, revealing the damage beneath. Fluid leaked out from where the skin had torn away and gaped now. Tori knew, consciously, that the best way to heal blisters was to push the skin back down and leave it there, even after they had opened. But she had never grown out of the childish habit of ripping the skin right off. It’s not like it would scar, and infections were easy to combat. But, from the furrow in Katakuri’s brows and the twist in his cheeks, it was likely he agreed with Madelle’s futile scoldings that she needed to cut it out. 

“What happened?” he asked. Tori felt her cheeks heat. Katakuri was a vaunted warrior. She didn’t want to tell him she had lost a fight so pitifully to her younger sister. 

“They’re just friction blisters. They will heal,” she assured. It felt nice, to have his hand encompassing hers. 

“You didn’t tell me you were hurt.” He didn’t sound annoyed. Something else. She didn’t know what to call it. She looked at their hands instead of his deep eyes. His were so much larger than her, calloused and hardened from work. Scars crossed silver across palms and fingers. 

“It’s barely anything,” she assured. Her smile grew with his concern. It felt… nice. “ I was just changing the bandages. I didn’t want to wake you,” she told him quietly. 

Without asking her Katakuri reached for the small jar of antibiotics. Tori watched him spread it across her palm and carefully replaced the bandages he had removed. 

His quiet voice surprised her. 

“You can tell me things. You know.” 

She didn’t know. But it made her feel strangely light to be told. When her hand was wrapped she turned it over to grasp a hold of his, smiling up at him. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. We should go back to bed, don’t you think?” she stood, still holding his hand. 

“Victoria,” it was the first time she had ever heard his name pass from his mouth. It hummed beneath her skin, echoing around them in the small space. She squeezed his hands. 

“Tori,” she said quietly. “You can call me Tori.” 

He nodded, slowly, and the pair of them went back to bed. Tori shut out the lights and waited for Katakuri to finish taking his scarf back off. When he laid down, she sunk into the bed next to him and took his hand once more under the blankets. He stiffened at first before relaxing again under her soft touch. 

“You know,” she began, quietly. “You don’t have to hide your face from me, if you don’t want to.” 

She was pleased when he did not tense up once more or try to leave. Nonetheless he shook his head, no more than a vague movement in the darkness and the hush of his cheeks on the pillow.Tori didn’t press the issue. It would come, in time. 

She closed her eyes and let sleep wash over her, hand in hand with her husband.


End file.
